The Ancient Greek Economy. Markets, Households and City-States

WHOLE CLOTH 173

house (Tsakirgis 2005 : 76). The brazier could have been used to heat water for

dyeing, but it equally might have provided heat or light to the room if this is

where the loom was set up. MacKinnon, who has recently surveyed the fau-

nal material stored with the context pottery from the Agora excavations, has

confirmed that there are no significant finds of murex in domestic contexts of

the Classical period to support the proposal that the Athenians used murex for

dyeing in the household manufacture of textiles (pers. comm.). The high cost

of the murex, 3 mna for a purple garment in the fifth century BCE according

to Plutarch in the Moralia (470), deterred small-scale purple dyeing in domes-

tic settings.

A second, smaller cluster of nine conical weights was found in Room

VII of the SE House in the Classical block on the slopes of the Areopagus

(Figure 7.4).^9

The conical shape was popular throughout history in Corinth and may have

been disseminated from there to other parts of Greece in the Late Classical and

7.3 House C in the Industrial District, Loom Weights, Spindle Whorl and Brazier Lot NN 590
(Courtesy of Agora excavations, ASCSA).