Description

Summary: 1 half of a pierced chalk loomweight, from the Romano-British period. From Westbury Iron works, Heywood, Wiltshire. Items recovered by Westbury Iron Company during extraction, 1877 to 1882.

Research results

A perforated stone loomweight found by the Westbury Iron Company during Iron ore extraction between 1877 and 1882. The finds from the site strongly suggest the presence of a romano-british settlement, although large stone loomweights such as this tend to be earlier and it is probably Iron Age in date.

Ruth Shaffrey (2017) has examined these weights as part of a wider discussion of stone loom weights in Prehistoric Britain. She notes that whilst there is evidence for the use of warp-weighted looms on the continent, there is no comparable evidence in Britain until the post-Roman period, and that the identification of all prehistoric loom weights is based on an assumption. She argues that the size and shape of many loom weights would not be suitable for use with a warp-weighted loom and this identification requires that Iron Age Britain utilised a novel and regional form of the loom, such as one by which a single pole is weighed down by fewer, larger weights. Althernatively, she argues that we should accept that the variety in size and form visible implies a similar variety in uses.