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Description: | A lead alloy spindle whorl which is convex on one face and flat on the reverse. It has a diameter of 31.3mm and is 10.7mm thick. It has a large central hole which is tapered, being larger at the bottom than at the top so the whorl could not slide off the spindle. The top face is decorated with an unintelligible mass of slightly raised lines.
Decorated spindle whorls are very rare finds in excavations, but are often found by metal detectorists. They are usually biconical and are decorated on both faces with raised dots and radiating or zig-zag ribs. They have been found in ploughsoil over the site of Roman buildings, and in an excavated context dating from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century at an Austin Friary (Geake, 2001). It is thus very difficult to date decorated whorls, and it seems that they could have been in use at any time between the Roman and Late Medieval periods. | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Creator: | Cooper, Amy - Portable Antiquities Scheme | Identifier: | http://www.findsdatabase.org.uk/hms/pas_... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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