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Identifying spindle whorls and loom weights

The flywheels and tensioners of home textile production.

A spindle whorl is a small centrally-pierced flywheel — stone, ceramic, bone, or lead — typically 2–5 cm across, dished, domed, or biconical, sometimes decorated with ring-and-dot or incised lines. Every household spun thread, so whorls span prehistory to the post-medieval era in quantity.

Loom weights are their bigger cousins: fired clay or chalk rings, triangles (an Iron Age favourite), and pyramids that tensioned warp threads on upright looms. Distinguish whorls from beads (whorl holes are proportionally larger and wear differently) and from pierced net sinkers (context and material help).

Weigh them — whorl weight determined thread fineness, and archaeologists reconstruct textiles from whorl statistics. Record diameter, height, hole diameter, material, and decoration; a decorated lead whorl may also be datable by its ornament style.

From the guide library inside Collectors Catalogues, a free app for cataloguing antiques and finds with honest, museum-grade records.

More on domestic objects

Identifying mirrors — Polished metal discs.

Identifying oil lamps — Nozzle, filling hole, and mold.

Identifying clay tobacco pipes — Bowl shape and heel marks.

Identifying agricultural tools — Sickles, billhooks, plough irons, and the seasons written in iron.

Identifying fishing gear — Hooks, net weights, and line sinkers from rivers, lakes, and coasts.

Identifying styli and writing equipment — Iron pens, wax spatulas, and the tools of everyday literacy.

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