This chunky piece of fired clay appears to be part of a broken loom weight. When whole, it would have looked like very fat ring doughnut and would have been the same sort of size, perhaps a bit larger.
Early Medieval weaving looms were vertical with each warp thread weighed down by a weight tied to the bottom. The image below illustrates of how the weights might have appeared. The weaver would probably have stood up to thread the weft thread horizontally between the warp threads.
This is one of two broken weights found side by side at the north end of Trench 1 so near the domestic building. Their presence is evidence that weaving took place on the site.
