172 BARBARA TSAKIRgIS
The present chapter is a work in
progress, as some of the material
I had hoped to present is, as yet,
unavailable for study.
Unfortunately, the houses and
many of the buildings of Athens
suffered not only several dam-
aging attacks over the course
of history, but also, from the
archaeologist’s perspective, sev-
eral equally damaging clean-ups.
Consequently, loom weights have
rarely been recovered from a pri-
mary domestic deposit other than
a well in the city. Limited evi-
dence for domestic weaving in
Archaic Athens comes from the
deposits of Persian destruction
debris published by Shear ( 1993 ).
One, two, or even as many as four weights were recovered from the deposits,
many of which were undoubtedly the results of the debris from a destroyed
house being used to fill an abandoned well.^8 A similar deposit, Well J 2:4, is
located to the north of the Agora space and its contents probably represent
a significant percentage of one home’s domestic pottery, both fine ware and
vessels for food preparation and service (Lynch 2011 : 75–146). Among these
vessels were eleven loom weights (Lynch 2011 : 291; Figure 7.2).
For the Classical period, numerous weights and spindle whorls were
recovered from the fill on the slopes of the Pnyx (Davidson and Thompson
1943 : 65–96); the weights were once used in the houses demolished to make
way for the latest expansion of the Athenian public assembly place. In my read-
ing of the pottery recovered from the archaeological contexts of the houses
excavated around the Agora, I have encountered singletons, or even two or
three weights, but there are only two significant clusters of weights from the
Classical houses. The largest collection of loom weights in an Athenian domes-
tic context is more significant in its find spot and associated assemblage. Twenty
pyramidal loom weights, dipped in slip and clearly a set, were found in Room
9 of House C in the Industrial District (Young 1951 : 206; Figure 7.3).
The excavation reports do not specify whether the weights were found in
a line or in a heap, a detail that would indicate whether they fell from a loom
or were in storage. One spindle whorl and a fragment of an open-pan brazier
were found with the weights in the room that opens off the courtyard of the7.2 Agora Deposit J 2:4, Loom Weight MC 1506
(Courtesy of Agora excavations, ASCSA).