Image: Bronze Age muller (profile) (FindID 202618)

Description: Fine-grained granite elvan muller or rubbing stone. The muller is oval in plan, with two rounded ends, and plano-convex in section. The muller is flat and smooth on the face that was used for rubbing, and convex on the opposite face, where it was held and pushed across a base for grinding. The muller would have been used with a larger saddle quern to grind grain between the stones to make flour. The elvan is a fine grained granitic inclusion and contains pale pink felspars and black quartz. The soft felspars would work into hollows and the hard quartz would stand proud of the surface, thus allowing a shearing action to cut and grind the grain. There are also random black patches of tourmaline and a distinctive circular tourmaline vein, but not enough to suggest that it was reoccurring within the granite. The shape of the muller suggests that it was made from a beach cobble. Jones (2002) illustrates a similar example excavated from Callestick on page 29, Fig.13, No.95 which is dated to the Later Bronze Age, c.1100-700 BC. Nowakowski (1991) illustrates a similar elvan example excavated from Trethellan on page 142, Fig.57, No.89, which dates from the Middle Bronze Age, c.1500-1200 BC.
Title: Bronze Age muller (profile)
Credit: https://finds.org.uk/database/ajax/download/id/158568 Catalog: https://finds.org.uk/database/images/image/id/158568/recordtype/artefacts archive copy Artefact: https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/202618
Author: Royal Institution of Cornwall, Anna Tyacke, 2007-12-05 23:03:14
Permission: Attribution-ShareAlike License version 4.0 (verified 15 November 2020)
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
License: CC BY-SA 4.0
License Link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
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