SPINDLE WHORL

Incomplete micaceous argillaceous shale spindle whorl, ranging from pink to brown in colour with a sparkling surface, which makes it look like schist, but without planar mica flakes. The whorl is circular in plan and sub-rectangular in profile, with parallel faces apart from a thinner edge on one side where a layer of the shale has broken away to expose almost half of that face. Both faces are partially perforated in the centre, and the apertures are 13 mm in diameter and 5 mm deep on one side and 9mm in diameter and 3 mm deep on the broken face. The shallower aperture is off centre, so that the two would not have quite met in the centre, so that the whorl would not be quite balanced while used in the spinning process, and perhaps this is why the piece was never completed. The deeper aperture has concentric rings where it has perhaps been drilled with a bow drill and emanating out from the edge of the hole to the edge of the whorl are four transverse grooves. This decoration is similar to grooves seen on slate, shale and ceramic spindle whorls from excavated Iron Age and Romano-British sites in Cornwall. Slate and shale are commonly used in the county for spindle whorls as they are light and easy to work as they fracture into sedimentary layers. The faces can then be easily ground to make them parallel and equally weighted on both sides, and the edges worked into a circular form to aid the spinning process.

Radford (1951) illustrates a spindle whorl of native micaceous slate that also has flat parallel sides and a slightly waisted off-set whole, from the Iron Age hillfort at Castle Dore, Fowey, on page 72, Fig.11, No.4, which is dated from the 4th century to the 1st century BC.

Threipland (1956) illustrates schist spindle whorls with incised linear decoration, from Carloggas in St Mawgan in Pydar, on page 77, Fig.38, Nos.3 & 5, which were excavated from the later Romano-British occupation layers.

Brooks (1974) illustrates two micaceous argillaceous spindle whorls, the latter with incised spoke-like transverse lines, from the Rumps cliff castle in St Minver, on pages 42 & 45, Figs.33 & 35, Nos.2 & 9, which are dated from the Iron Age to the Romano-British period, c.2nd century BC - AD 1st century.

Saunders & Harris (1982) illustrate a pink buff slate spindle whorl from Castle Gotha, St Austell, on page 133, Fig.10, No.15, which dates from the 1st century AD.