QUERN

Fragment of a Roman hand-turned rotary quern. About one eighth of the upper stone survives, including part of the outer edge: the inner point of the wedge may be at the central hole but is too incomplete and abraded to be certain. Assuming this is the central hole, and given the curve of the outer edge, the complete diameter is estimated to be at least c. 500mm but this is tentative given the small section of outer edge surviving and the wear on the broken corners. Convex upper face with roughly dressed surface and worn rounded corners, vertical or slightly convex outer side , flat lower face with a smoothed grinding surface. There is an irregular brak at the inner end of the lower face removing patr of the face and appearing darker.

Well cemented, poorly sorted coarse grain buff sandstone with sparse rounded white quartz pebbles up to 20mm and sub-rounded small pebbles of various minerals including shale up to 4mm. Probably an arkosic sandstone which elsewhere has been linked to widely distributed millstones of 500mm diameter or greater and turned by mechanical means (Reniere et al. 2016) although in this case the size would suggest a probable hand turned mill by the criteria used by Shaffrey (2015). 230mm from edge to inner point, 250mm at right angles to this, 71.3mm thick.

Published in Rippon (forthcoming)