Bearded men bottles could have been filled with urine and hair to ward off 17th century witches
This article originally appeared on Culture24.
Bottles found beneath a hearth in Hampshire contained bent bronze pins, human hair and cork bungs
Four complete 'bearded man' bottles were discovered in Hampshire 24 years ago© Hampshire Cultural TrustAnne Leaver, who lived opposite the construction site for a British Telecom exchange building in Abbotts Ann, led members of the Andover Archaeological Society to the suspected former homes, where mechanical removal of surface layers revealed brick flooring and footings, a flint-lined wall and a bottle in an upright position beneath a hearth.
A second, inverted bottle was found under a hearth. Two more – one inverted, one upright – surfaced nearby, each containing a cork bung and reflecting designs from the early 16th century Rhineland, commonly found in England from the 17th century.
The inner surface of one of the vessels had been coated with yellow powder© Hampshire Cultural Trust“Contemporary accounts indicate that the purpose of such bottle burials was as an antidote to witchcraft – hence the name witch bottles.
“Typical contents included bent bronze pins, bent nails, human hair, nail clippings and urine. It is assumed that the deposits were intended to throw back an evil spell on the witch who had cast it by using the sympathetic power of the hair or urine of the supposed victim.
“The two upright bottles contained a coil of hair and each inverted vessel contained three bent bronze pins.
“All of them were complete except one, which was broken across the middle with some small pieces missing. The inner surface of this vessel was coated with yellow powder.
The faces tended to become less friendly as the bottles degenerated© Hampshire Cultural Trust“The practice was described in various accounts in the late 17th century, no doubt stimulating its rapid spread,” says Allen.
“It turned out that another complete bottle had been found five years earlier in another house in the village, buried in a chalk floor immediately in front of the hearth and chimney stack.”
Known as Bartmann vessels, the bottles were also named after Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, an important figure in the Catholic church during the 16th and 17th centuries. The Cardinal’s involvement in contentious issues made him unpopular, causing people to bestow his surname upon bottles with fearsome faces.
“But he was far from bad, giving all his worldly goods to the poor and dying a pauper himself,” says Allen.
“The first Bartmann vessels had friendly faces. But as the masks degenerated, it may have encouraged their use as witch bottles.”
One of the roundels is “exceedingly rare.”
“The medallion has the initials ‘W K’ and the date 1672. ‘W K’ is probably Captain William Killigrew of Chelsea, who attempted to manufacture stoneware in England with the help of Symon Wooltus, a Dutch émigré. Their first bottles were made at Southampton.”
- Visit hampshirearchaeology.wordpress.com for more. You can see three of the vessels at Andover Museum. The fourth, relating to Captain Killigrew, is on show in the ceramics section of the Allen Gallery in Alton.
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