Keep Counting

     Before the Romans decided to make their way to my Celtic ancestor's hill fort area, the woolen and linen production were well established. Peter Ellis in his book "The Celtic Empire" p.144 states, "At the time Caesar turned his mind to conquest, Britain was a prosperous country with flourishing agricultural communities, advanced in art, woolen and lien production, wheeled pottery and the production of jewellery". [Book Cover shown below]

        On the same page he continues, "It is especially surprising that Caesar seems ignorant of the fact that the woolen cloaks (sagi) from Britain were highly prized in the Rome of his day and were therefore indicative of a widespread knowledge of the high standard of the British woolen industry." (p. 144-145.) Who would have thought of such a thing existing 100 B.C.?

      So to continue counting, William's in is hillfort book (listed on many past posts) p. 192 suggest that between 200 - 300 folks were possibly residing at Old Oswestry around this time. Divide this population by 2 [50-50 male to female ratio taking the lower estimate] It would leave around 50 male souls. Now using the best guess from last post [30 sheep on average per individual/assumed to be head of family] would come to 1500 sheep grazing about. It is documented that shearing occurred in June each year, thus giving roughly 26 days to accomplish shearing the wool, washing and drying, and laboriously beating and combing(called carding), making sacks to carry to market, and keep track of all the happenings. [26 days less 4 Sundays for Church and rest]! Who kept up with all the sheep?

      Now continue counting. If there were 1500 sheep divided by 26 days, it would mean 57-58 sheep per day would have to be handled.  Revisiting a past figure drawn from the middle ages : 6-7 sheep are counted per row for the three rows given to the single shearer. Three additional folks (female) appear to be participating in this activity. Thus in one rectangular enclosure there are 18-20 sheep in one representative drawing. A day's work indeed! 

       Considering Old Oswestry's rectangular structures as shown before: there are six shown to be present on the western facing front. [ 6 x 20 = 60 ] sheep could be handled per day. Hum, what about those numbers! A good possibility it seems.