The Rotary Querns from the Society of Antiquaries' Excavations at Silchester, 1890-1909

Abstract

The 79 rotary querns described here are part of the Silchester Collection housed in Reading Museum. These were retained during excavations at the Roman town carried out between 1890 and 1909 and published annually in Archaeologia by the Society of Antiquaries. Although eleven items are marked with what are thought to be the original markings of the excavators indicating the insula from which they came, most are unmarked. It is assumed that the unmarked querns in the store are from Silchester primarily because the Silchester Collection has always been stored separately from the rest of the archaeological collection in Reading Museum. Some of the querns from Silchester may be from the Joyce excavations in the town but material from other excavations, including those by Boon, Cotton, and Richmond, was boxed separately. The finds numbers used here are those allocated by the museum and where a finds number is referred to in the text, this should be prefixed with the museum code 1995.90. The 79 querns comprise 34 upper stones, 42 lower stones, and 3 unknowns.