Posted on 01/24/2025 9:20:52 AM PST by Red Badger
A student used imaging technology to peek inside without popping the cork.
The bottle appears to have been made between 1790 and 1840.
Image courtesy of Josephine McKenzie
The mystery of a 200-year-old bottle has been solved. It turns out, it wasn’t a vessel for booze, but a “witch bottle” filled with pee and a bunch of botanicals to ward off malevolent spirits.
The bottle, still intact with its original cork and filled with liquid, was unearthed at a building site in the seaside town of Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire, UK. The owner of the property passed it on to the University of Lincoln’s Conservation of Cultural Heritage department with two requests: to preserve the object, and to identify the liquid within the bottle without removing the cork.
“I received the email of inquiry about the bottle around a year ago, and I was keen to accept it in as a student project. We get numerous inquiries regarding some very varied objects, but we’d never accepted something quite like this before,” Josephine McKenzie, a Senior Technician for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage department, told IFLScience.
“It really is quite a fascinating and rare object,” McKenzie added.
The task was taken up by Zara Yeates, a third-year undergraduate student, who was immediately drawn to the strange artifact.
Witch bottles are part of a folk tradition from the 18th and 19th centuries that involves placing glass bottles in a house to talismans to ward off evil spirits. They're most common in the UK, although the tradition was carried across the Atlantic to the US too.
In this part of the UK, the bottles often contain objects like small animal bones, iron nails, nail clippings, and other materials linked to superstition and the belief in sympathetic magic.
Multispectral imaging results of the mystery bottle. Image courtesy of Josephine McKenzie To determine if the bottle contained any of these symbolic materials, which would suggest it was a true witch bottle, Yeates conducted an X-ray of the relic. To her surprise, the bottle contained no large solid objects – primarily just liquid with small amounts of sediment.
This led Yeates and the team to speculate whether the object was in line with a similar tradition in East Anglia, a neighboring region of Lincolnshire, whereby witch bottles were filled with urine and botanicals, such as leaves, herbs, or flowers.
The use of XRF (X-ray fluorescence) analysis and multispectral imaging was able to confirm these suspicions: the bottle contained bodily fluid and small amounts of degraded plant material.
The most likely explanation is that the bottle was a witch bottle inspired by the traditions of nearby East Anglia. Alternatively, it may reflect a different practice common among sailors, where a bottle filled with urine was buried at their home as a superstitious measure to ensure a safe return from their voyages.
Yeates told the BBC that the builders who found the bottle thought it contained rum and were planning on drinking it – so, regardless of the bottle's original function, it’s a good job they didn’t.
She reportedly said that this particular bottle shape was introduced in 1790 and its unevenness indicated it was hand-blown. Since the molds to make bottles were only introduced in 1840, this implies the bottle was crafted within this 50-year window around the beginning of the 19th century.
The mystery of the bottle is solved, but its adventure continues. After being further conserved by Yeates, the artifact will be on display at the University of Lincoln’s Conservation of Cultural Heritage final-year degree show in June 2025, before being returned to its owner (still filled with its historical pee).
PeePee PinGGG!.....................
“The most likely explanation is that the bottle was a witch bottle inspired by the traditions of nearby East Anglia.”
The source of the Globull Warming hoax............
“Alternatively, it may reflect a different practice common among sailors, where a bottle filled with urine was buried at their home as a superstitious measure to ensure a safe return from their voyages.”
Well, who doesn’t do this? On the rare times I leave the compound to, ‘go out among the English’ I leave a Witch Bottle behind. Better Safe than Sorry! ;)
Or someone thought it would be funny to pee in the bottle and then seal it back up in the hopes someone would open it and take a swig.
I go out behind the barn, just don’t leave a bottle.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if if they could perform DNA analysis on the urine and find living descendants? Imagine the student contacting them! “Good day, sir. We have something that once belonged to your gr-gr-gr-grandfather.”
Yeah, but how did it taste? They didn't say in the article.
This could be researched further.
There maybe records of the owners and/or tenets of the house where the bottle was found including the professions of those people.
After being further conserved by Yeates, the artifact will be on display at the University of Lincoln’s Conservation of Cultural Heritage final-year degree show in June 2025, before being returned to its owner (still filled with its historical pee).
Yeates maybe able to make an educated guess as to the identity of man who filled the bottle. There may even be photo of the man out there.
I see some of these witch bottles along the highways, and especially at exit ramps. I’m guessing based on this analysis that they are carefully placed there to ward off wrecks and ensure safe travels...
This is the entire deal, right here! The afterlife is rolling right now.
Voodoo in The South has been around for 350 years..............
Thanks for the pings.
This could be categorized as an unrequited prank. :^)
They could run a series of tests on the liquid to determine if the person had a disease................
That’ll put some hair on your chest!
Good thing he didn’t open it.
“The mystery of a 200-year-old bottle has been solved. It turns out, it wasn’t a vessel for booze, but a “witch bottle” filled with pee”
I didn’t know they had truck drivers back then.
As the old man's friend, some whizz kid had suggested a PNA test. Even though it was his No. 1 priority, the pool of experts decided to aim in another direction entirely.
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