17th-century Witch Bottle

Posted by Miss Cellania in Everything Else on June 6, 2009 at 10:37 am

A bottle has been unearthed in Greenwich, England that contains urine and objects believed to have been put there to combat witchcraft. It was completely corked, so the contents were available for analysis, unlike other bottles found from the period.

An Old Bailey court record from 1682 documents that a husband, believing his wife to be afflicted by witchcraft, was advised by a Spitalfields apothecary to “take a quart of your Wive’s urine, the paring of her Nails, some of her Hair, and such like, and boyl them well in a Pipkin.”

The excavated bottle appears to have been made according to those, or similar, instructions.

CT scans and chemical analysis, along with gas chromatography conducted by Richard Cole of the Leicester Royal Infirmary, reveal the contents of the bottle to include human urine, brimstone, 12 iron nails, eight brass pins, hair, possible navel fluff, a piece of heart-shaped leather pierced by a bent nail, and 10 fingernail clippings.

So far, they’ve found the urine was from someone who smoked, and the fingernails were in good shape, indicating a person of high status. Link -via Unique Daily

(image credit: Mike Pitts/British Archaeology)

 
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Beheaded Teen Witch Gets Proper Funeral...700 Years Later

Posted by Queuebot in Odd News, Religion on March 24, 2009 at 1:07 am

The remains of a 14th century teenager, believed to have been beheaded on charges of witchcraft and buried in unconsecrated ground, has been laid to rest in a proper funeral…700 years after her death.

The girl, named Holly by archaeologists because her remains were found beneath a holly bush, had had her head laid at her side, a sign that she might have been suspected of witchcraft.

Dr Paul Wilkinson, director of the Kent Archaeological Field School, said the decapitation – which it was believed would deny eternal life – meant Holly was ’shamed’ and was either a teenage witch, a criminal or had committed suicide.

A crowd of more than 200 mourners – who had responded to an appeal to give the suspected witch a respectable funeral – gathered to pay their respects to a teenager whose identity remains a mystery.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Pirate Jenny.

 
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