Quern (4 of 8)

Querns are stone handmills used mostly for grinding cereals. This picture shows the bottom of the upper stone of a rotary quern found at the site of the Roman fort at Newstead in Roxburghshire. It was used sometime between 80 and 180 AD.

Channels have been chiselled into the stone, radiating from the centre. As the cereal was ground, the crushed grains were forced out along these grooves. The iron handle protruding from the side was used to turn the quern.

Querns were made of two stones. The inside faces of the two had grooves which allowed the crushed grains to be spun out from between the stones. This effective, but laborious, method of grinding cereals was used in Scotland until this century.

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