Around the time of the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts, belief in
witchcraft also persisted in England and continental Europe. Witch
bottles--small containers filled with personal items, sealed, and
buried--are one way witchcraft appears in the archaeological record.
The belief was that the buried bottle absorbed a spell, tormenting
the witch that cast it. When they are found today, they are almost
always broken or empty, but in Greenwich in 2004, workers found a
rare, unopened example, a stoneware bellarmine jar. They heard
rattling and splashing inside, so the bottle found its way to retired
chemist Alan Massey, an old hand at examining witch bottles. It was
an unusual opportunity to bring all the tools of modern science
(laboratory science and high-tech elemental analysis--our own
witchery!) to the study of 17th-century witchcraft.
X-rays revealed pins and nails stuck in the jar's neck (it had been
buried upside-down), and a CT scan showed that it was about half-filled with liquid. Using a long needle, scientists penetrated the
cork and extracted some of the brew inside. Using proton nuclear
magnetic resonance and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, they
determined the contents: urine. The bodily fluid was spiked with a
metabolite of nicotine, indicating a smoker, and sulfur, the hellish
brimstone of the Book of Revelation. After removing the cork, and
taking in what was likely a rather unpleasant smell, Massey
inventoried the contents: 12 iron nails (one of which was driven
through a leather heart), 8 brass pins, clumps of hair, 10 manicured
fingernail clippings, and a little clot of what looked like
bellybutton lint. Textual sources confirm that these were not unusual
items. According to British Archaeology, where the find was first
reported, a court record from 1682 documents the recommendation of an
apothecary: "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." Apparently, sometimes when you have attracted the attention
of a witch, you have to get your hands dirty and resort to a little
of the craft yourself.