Today’s VM 365  image for Day 124 is of two loomweights that were found among the soil and rubbish used to backfill an abandoned grain storage pit at North Foreland, Broadstairs, one of two similar  pits that were found near to each other. The other pit had been used later to bury a woman in the upper part of the cut.

The loom weights were found in the upper fills of  the pit, among pottery dating to the middle Iron Age.  Other domestic waste in the pit fill included animal bone, marine shells, flint, daub, charcoal, and burnt and charred grain and chaff from species such as oats, barley, wheat and spelt.

The loomweights were carved from chalk, which may have been picked up from the coast nearby. The weights may not have been used before they were dumped in the pit with the other rubbish. One weight was certainly unfinished as the hole in the centre did not penetrate all the way through the chalk and must have abandoned while it was still being worked on.