Our find of the month for May enables us to have a look at textile production during the Iron Age. It is a large, triangular loom weight which was found during an evaluation in the village of Kirkby on Bain, Lincolnshire. Archaeological evidence for the actual process of textile production is scarce as the wooden looms and associated threads and wool don’t survive. What do survive better are the spindle whorls from the spinning process and loom weights from weaving.

These triangular shaped loom weights are thought to have been used during the Iron Age and are usually made from fired clay, though stone is common on earlier sites. The clay is normally of low firing and as such the weights are prone to break. Later Anglo Saxon loom weights are circular and many Roman ones are pyramidal in shape. The reason for choosing a particular shape is not known and is likely a personal or cultural preference. Loom weights are a fairly common find on sites in Northern Europe and in the Near East where a certain type of loom was used.

The loom which would have been in use during the British Iron Age was the warp-weighted loom which became obsolete in the Roman period but had been in use since the Neolithic. This was a fairly simple loom which consisted of two wooden uprights and a horizontal bar, which would rest against the wall. The warp (vertical) threads would hang freely from the bar and would be tied individually or in bundles to the loom weights. The clay loom weights hanging from the bottom of the threads would keep them taut enough to enable the weft (horizontal) threads to be more easily passed over and under in the weaving process.

This particular loom weight is quite large, weighing in at 2.27kg which would create quite a bit of tension in the yarns. As mentioned earlier, due to the low firing of the clay, they can break fairly easily and several of these heavy items hitting into each other as you weave would cause frequent damage. This loom weight has lost the tips of two of the corners but is still a remarkably complete example of the type.