Spinning and Weaving · Agriculture and Fishing

Spinning and weaving

Spinning and weaving were an obligatory part of the work of Roman women, whatever their social status. However, the large quantity of loom weights concentrated in a single residential block in Conimbriga, and the enormous weight of some of them, suggest the existence of artisanal production of yarns and textiles outside the family context.

The vertical warp-weighted loom is the most common throughout the Roman world, and its invention goes back to the Bronze Age. The parallelepiped-shaped weights show heavy wear caused by friction when they were placed on top of one another; perhaps this is why the trapezoidal form appears much more abundant and better preserved.

Agriculture and fishing

Located among lands with fertile soil and abundant water, the municipality of Conimbriga must have had many rural landowners and many agricultural workers. So far, the farming tools found are few, certainly because only the urban area has been excavated. Besides being few in number, they are not very varied, although they represent essential operations such as preparing the soil, planting, pruning, reaping, and harvesting grapes, as defined by Cato and Varro, Columella, Pliny, and Palladius, the Latin authors most devoted to the study and protection of agriculture.