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Description: | A lead alloy spindle whorl. The whorl is sub-circular and flat with a large circular central hole. There are some scratches on the sides and faces. It has a diameter of 26.8mm and is 8.5mm thick. One face of the whorl is decorated with a six pointed star created from two interlocking triangles of raised lines. The whorl is in fair condition with a white powdery surface with dark brown patches, especially on the raised lines.Helen Geake writes: "Dating of lead whorls is difficult. The drop spindle with which they were used continued in use until the end of the medieval period in London and Winchester (Egan, 1998, "The Medieval Household: Daily Living c1150 - c1450"; and Biddle, 1990, "Object and Economy in Medieval Winchester"), and for perhaps a century longer in Norfolk (Margeson, 1993, "Norwich Households: Medieval and Post Medieval finds from Norwich Survey Excavations 1971 - 78"). The excavated assemblage from Winchester contains one lead whorl from a mid to late tenth century context. Decorated whorls are exceptionally rare finds on excavations, but are fairly often found by detectorists. At Cottam in East Yorkshire detectorists found decorated whorls in ploughsoil over the site of Roman buildings, but in Leicester a decorated whorl was found, still on its spindle, in a thirteenth to fifteenth century context (Mellor and Pearce, 1981, "The Austin Friary, Leicester")". It thus seems possible that decorated whorls can be Roman, Medieval or Post medieval in date.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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