Tag Archives: quern stones

New Aquisitions

Wehave a set of quern stones, from Tewkesbury, and some grain to grind. They proved very popular at both Silchester open days, helping the Students understand how labour intensive food preparation was in the Iron Age and the Roman period. We also occasionally meet people from other cultures who remember growing us using quern stones. We’re really glad that we can help people keep in touch with their personal histories, not just the history of this country.

 

Between the first and second Silchester Open Days, we made a replica Iron Age warp-weighted loom. This was to demonstrate the use and context of the Iron Age loom weights found by the Reading University students at the Silchester excavation.

 

 

Our fire stand / grid made by Cobalt Blacksmiths has been finished for Herstmonceux, where we were demonstrating natural dyes for all three days, as well as using our loom. It keeps the fire off the ground, so we can demonstrate dyeing at sensitive historical sites.

Silchester Open Days

We were honoured to be invited to Silchester for both of their Archaeological open days in July and August.

Silchester is a Roman town in Hampshire, which has been excavated for the last 17 years by Reading University. They have discovered both the layout of the town and the Iron Age settlement which was there before.

At the first open day we took our new quern stones, as well as some grain, and helped the visitors use them to make flour. We ground all the grain we took in just the morning, the stones never stopped turning. It was brilliant to see the opportunities families took to educate children about the origins of bread they eat every day. The archaeologists were also exhibiting a Roman quern from Verulamium (St. Albans), and having ours for demonstration really brought it to life for the visitors.

Before the second open day, we made a replica of an Iron Age warp-weighted loom. We set it up and started weaving at the open day, demonstrating how it worked. This helped to put the finds of loom weights into context for both the public and the students.

https://www.reading.ac.uk/silchester/