The other possible rationale behind the bottle is that evil forces trying to enter the home would be lured by the smell of the hair, snagged on the bent pins, then drowned in the urine.
One of the earliest known accounts of preparing witch bottles is from Joseph Glanvill’s 1681 treatise ‘Evidence concerning Witches and Apparitions’. Glanvill recounts the case of a man whose wife was ill and plagued by a ‘thing in the shape of a bird’. An old travelling man advised that this must be a dead sprite, and to cure her of her bewitchment the husband was instructed to:
‘Take your Wife’s Urine . . . Cork it in a Bottle with Nails, Pins and Needles, and bury it in the Earth; and that will do the feat [to cure her].’
Glanvill tells us the dutiful husband did as he was told and his wife began to ‘mend sensibly’.
Counter-magical devices seem to have been buried into the foundations and walls of buildings since prehistoric times – Neolithic (late Stone Age, around 3000BC) roundhouses have revealed animal and human bones buried in the floors, Green Men and other folk images were carved into medieval Christian churches, and some of the buried treasures described in this book may well have been deposited to protect the occupants of a home or community from perceived evil.
Witch Bottles weren’t the only tool available – old shoes, cats entombed while alive and horses’ skulls have all been found built into walls, doorways and chimney breasts to protect occupants and ‘catch’ evil. Pinning a horseshoe above a door is a continuation of this ancient tradition, and hidden human shoes are regularly found during building work in British homes. Northampton Museum keeps a ‘Concealed Shoe Index’ and invites people who find shoes hidden in the floors, walls and chimneys of old buildings to report them. Their database already holds details of more than 1,900 concealed shoes.
See also:
Billingford Amulet
Saltfleetby Spindle Whorl
Syston Knife Handle
An erotic depiction of a man, a woman, another man and a severed head
Date: 43–410AD, Roman
Where, when and how found: Syston, Lincolnshire; 2007; metal detecting
Finder: David Baker
Where is it now? Collection Museum, Lincoln
www.thecollectionmuseum.com
David Baker was metal detecting on farmland in Syston when he got a signal, dug down and discovered this very unusual copper-alloy Roman knife handle. At 64mm long, it would have been riveted to a short fixed blade, making a functional domestic knife. What’s most striking is the three-dimensional design that forms the handle.
The design depicts a rather acrobatic sex scene – an adult male on the right is being straddled by a woman in the middle, who is in turn leaning on the back of a smaller man on the left, who is holding what appears to be a severed human head. The smaller man could perhaps be a juvenile or a dwarf, and all three figures have their heads turned, looking out to right and left. Careful inspection of the Syston handle shows that the tall man on the right isn’t actually having sexual intercourse with the lady in the middle, but is directing his attentions towards the smaller chap at the end.
Decorative knife handles are quite common from the Roman period. The most popular design is of a hound chasing a hare, others include figures in wrestling embraces and gladiators. Other erotic knife handles have been found from Roman Britain, including a crouching woman straddling a man lying down, found in North Yorkshire, a nude standing female figure, from Worcestershire, and two knives similar to the Syston knife handle. The other ‘threesome’ knife handles show the same three figures but minus the severed head. So far this addition is unique.
“An adult male on the right is being straddled by a woman in the middle, who is in turn leaning on the back of a smaller man on the left, who is holding what appears to be a severed human head”
The design is certainly eye-catching, but what could it mean? The discovery of more than one knife handle showing variants of the same ‘threesome’ scene suggest that they refer to a well-known story, song or myth. No ‘threesome’ knife handles have been found outside Britain, so it’s likely that this was a story with a British provenance and these knife handles were manufactured here.
Rude Britannia
We don’t have written evidence of the folk traditions of Roman Britain – the native Britons didn’t keep written records, and Roman historians and writers tended to restrict their accounts to matters of ‘importance’ rather than the folk entertainment or rituals of provincial Romano-British society. Romans often incorporated native traditions into their ritual and religious practices and it’s more than likely that they also enjoyed songs and stories from the native British repertoire. Perhaps the characters featured in a bawdy tale, poem, or raucous song.
It’s easy to interpret the Syston Knife Handle as a bit of Romano-British smut, but some experts have suggested that this interpretation reveals more about our own modern attitudes to sex, rather than those of Roman-Britons. Perhaps this knife handle reflects a fertility or rebirth story, something with ritual importance, rather than a playful and saucy trinket. It’s also possible that the knife handle represents Roman attitudes to the ‘barbarian’ practices of the natives. Head-hunting cults may well have existed in native British cultures, and it’s possible that this strange sex scene is mocking, satirical and demeaning.
We can’t be sure, and archaeology will struggle to offer us the answers. What remains is our modern response to this strange, charming and intriguing object – and if it entertains us, then perhaps it entertained its Roman owners as well.
See also:
Putney ‘Brothel’ Token
Roman Slave Shackle
Billingford Amulet
A Roman magical charm inscribed with a secret message
Date: 60–150AD, Roman
Where, when and how found: Billingford, Norfolk; 2003; chance find in a garden
Finder: Anonymous
Official valuation: £10,000
Where is it now? Norwich Castle Museum, Norfolk
www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk
This beautiful gold sheet known as a lamella (meaning ‘small tablet’ in Latin) was discovered accidentally in a Norfolk garden. Originally it would have been tightly rolled up and hung in a tubular pendant around the neck as a protective talisman. Its protective power is contained in the inscription scratched on to its surface, a mysterious spell offering an intriguing insight into one man’s life and belief in Roman Britain almost two thousand years ago.
The gold sheet, 4cm by 3cm, weighing just 1.93g and 91% pure (almost 22 carat), is soft enough to easily inscribe. Using a fine, needle-point stylus, someone has confidently written a series of words and symbols in Greek, Latin and magical characters across nine lines and two side-lines, that give the formula of a protective charm.
The text begins with a series of magical symbols that look a bit like Greek, and then the inscription continues:
Iao, Abrasax [ . . . ], ablanathanalba,
give health and victory (to)
Tiberius Claudius Similis whom Herennia Marcellina bore
Iao and Abrasax, written in Greek, are the names of gods. Incredibly, the word ablanathanalba is a well-known magical word, the Roman equivalent of our ‘Abracadabra’.
The bottom lines reveal that this treasure was originally owned by Tiberius Claudius Similis. Similis was a common name in Roman Germany, and the owner was probably a citizen from the Lower Rhine area, posted as a soldier to the new northern Roman province, Britannia, after the initial conquest in 43AD.
Although these magical amulets would have been quite common in the Roman Empire, there are only seventy survivals in the world. Quite how this one ended up sitting in the grass of 21st century Norfolk, we will never know. It’s most likely that it was simply dropped or fell off and, incredibly, neither destroyed nor discovered in twenty centuries.
Just like modern-day lucky charms, it’s not always easy to work out how much someone believes in magical power,
even if they do wear a ‘magical’ artefact. People across cultures and throughout time have always tried to control and manage ‘fate’, the unknown, and luck. Often we have conflicting and competing belief systems that we turn to in different circumstances. For example, people who go to church at Christmas may still blow on their dice for luck, wear a grandparent’s treasured jewellery for a job interview and not step on the cracks in the pavement on the way out of the house. The social, psychological and spiritual importance of artefacts are always entwined; most of the time, we don’t stop to unravel and analyse our beliefs.
The situation was probably the same for Tiberius Claudius. Perhaps a family member commissioned the amulet from a professional magician or priest; perhaps he paid to have it made himself. Certainly, the person who wrote the inscription was well-versed in Greek, Latin and the strange magical symbols. We don’t know whether this lamella helped Tiberius Claudius, but it’s certainly a triumph that it was discovered, reported and is now displayed for us all to appreciate.
See also:
Cautopates Figurine
Ashwell Hoard
Hockley Pendant
Happisburgh Handaxe
Evidence of the earliest Britons
Date: 500,000BC, Palaeolithic (Early Stone Age)
Where, when and how found: Happisburgh beach, Norfolk; 2000; chance find while dog walking
Finder: Mike Chambers
Where is it now? Norwich Castle Museum, Norwich
www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk
Visit online: Natural History Museum online resources
www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/human-origins/
Mike Chambers was walking his dog in Happisburgh (pronounced ‘Haze-bruh’), Norfolk, when a shaped black stone on the beach caught his eye.
As Mike lifted the stone out of the thick clay it was sitting in, he immediately recognised it as an ancient tool known as a ‘handaxe’ – a tool designed to be held directly in the hand rather than attached to a handle. This was an extraordinary find. It had eroded out of the ancient mud and sand levels that had once been the ground surface 500,000 years ago – meaning it was at least that old.
Shaped from a natural chunk of flint, this tool has been systematically struck to remove sharp flakes of stone until it’s the ideal shape and sharpness. It’s been worked on both sides and is designed to fit well into a human hand. Analysis of the patterns of scratches and surface damage, called ‘use-wear analysis’, reveals that handaxes were multi-functional, used for scraping and cutting hides, bones, wood and meat. They were the Swiss Army knives of their day, and based on the position of Mike’s find we know that it’s one of the earliest handaxes we have.
Simpler human stone tools have been discovered in sites nearby dating to an incredible 800,000 years ago. It means that early human species reached northern Europe much earlier than we’d previously thought.
“This tool has been systematically struck to remove sharp flakes of stone until it’s the ideal shape and sharpness”
The earliest humans evolved in Africa, and reached southern Europe perhaps around 1.5 million years ago. Experts didn’t think they moved north of the Alps until 500,000 years ago, but evidence from Happisburgh pushes the dates back by another 300,000 years. At that time, the climate was colder than it is now – the habitat was mainly pine forest and the winters were long, similar to modern southern Scandinavia. To have survived these conditions means that these early humans were smarter, better equipped and more mobile than we’d thought.
Early humans
The people who made the Happisburgh handaxe weren’t modern humans – Homo sapiens – they belonged to an earlier ancestor species, but until human fossils are discovered in the area, we can’t be sure which species we’re dealing with. The likely candidate is Homo heidelbergensis, who were tall, agile toolmakers with brains almost as big as ours. It’s very likely that they wore furs or hides, could control fire, worked together to hunt and forage, and cooked their food. We don’t know if they had language, but it’s suspected that they could speak simply.
The landscape of Happisburgh would have looked very different at the time these people were living here. Mike’s find was in an area that used to be a riverbank in an ancient valley. At this time Britain was connected to continental Europe by a wide land-bridge. Sea levels were probably similar to today, but a chalk ridge between Kent and northern France, and an area known to archaeologists as ‘Doggerland’, were above sea level. The chalk was breached by the sea about 450,000 years ago, forming the English Channel, and now Doggerland is under the North Sea.
Although the climate was colder, the banks along the river were lush and grazed by lots of animals – fossils of deer, bison, rhino, carnivores and aquatic animals reveal that this was an area where the river was slow-flowing, and food for herbivores and carnivores was plentiful. It would have been a bountiful habitat for these smart ape-men with their stone tools and well-honed survival tactics.
The person who made and used this handaxe understood his or her materials and environment, and wouldn’t have thrown this tool away lightly. Their sophisticated tool technology marks this species out as special, and there’s some evidence that handaxes became the first ‘prestige’ items ever – beautifully shaped and worked to a level beyond anything that improved their usefulness. Just like so many other treasures in this book, this handaxe shows that humans have always found unique ways to express themselves.
When Mike discovered and picked up the handaxe, he was the first person to hold it for more than half a million years. Something about that stone meant he saw the human ‘signature’, and in that instant, he shared an incredible connection to a person half a million years away.
See also:
Isle of Wight Axehead
Syston Knife Handle
Dartmoor Sword
SOUTH EAST
THE SOUTH EAST has borne witness to some pivotal moments in Britain’s history. Ancient centres of power, like Canterbury, Colchester and Royal Tunbridge Wells have shaped our nation in ways we often underappreciate. And being so close to the continent, the South East has seen more than just the weather come across the Channel.
When the Romans invaded in 43AD, they built Dover Lighthouse, coastal forts like Richborough, and developed thriving civilian centres like Verulamium (St Albans). Saxon shore forts reveal the next wave of neighbours to arrive and radically transform our country. A few hundred years later, William the Conqueror’s 1066 victory is memorialised in his castle at Hastings and the abbey at Battle, and defences from almost every generation onwards are apparent in the landscape and in the artefacts we find. The Hackney WWII Hoard captures a moment when a terrified citizen feared the next invaders were on their way.
Ever mindful of that delicate relationship with close neighbours, the people of the South East have played clever political games through the years. A number of the finds from this region hint at political scheming in camps, courts and castles – from the Iron Age Anarevitos Stater, to the Anglo-Saxon ruler who wore the North West Essex Ring, to the 17th-century Rochester Cufflink and the Epsom Horse Harness Boss.
Generations of residents in the South East have felt threats from across the water, but have also experienced times of power. The Ringlemere Cup and Helmet Cremation Burial are incredible finds that reveal the prestigious networks South Eastern people have been involved with. More intimate possessions, like George Humber’s Distinguished Conduct Medal and the Canterbury Pilgrim Badges are poignant reminders that extraordinary historical events are always played out in the personal experiences of everyday people.
The South East is the most densely populated region in the British Isles and London dominates, of course, with its 8.5 million residents. The mighty River Thames has been a focus of activity since humans arrived in Britain, and it’s been described as the largest archaeological site in Britain. This liquid history begins in Gloucestershire and flows out to the sea in Kent, via royal Windsor and through the heart of L
ondon. The Putney ‘Brothel’ Token is just one tiny, evocative artefact that represents the millions of people who’ve lived and worked along this ancient riverside.
Ashwell Hoard and the Goddess Senuna
A unique Roman temple treasure that reveals a new British goddess
Date: 200–400AD, Roman
Where, when and how found: Ashwell, Hertfordshire; 2002; metal detecting rally
Finder: Alan Meek
Official valuation: £37,137
Where is it now? British Museum, London
www.britishmuseum.org
Alan Meek was detecting in an ordinary field in Hertfordshire when he thought that he’d picked up a sandwich wrapper. He quickly realised it was actually a very ancient piece of silver, and it wasn’t alone.
Alan had pinpointed a rare assemblage of twenty ‘votive plaques’ – thin sheets of gold and silver with religious words and images inscribed on them, some items of jewellery, two small silver arms and a silver statuette.
Over the next few years, the Ashwell site was excavated by professional archaeologists and the local community archaeological society. It’s helped us build a picture of how these precious treasures ended up where they did.
Each of the objects in the Ashwell Hoard was a personal offering made at a Roman temple shrine honouring a goddess. Romans in Britain, as well as Britons who had adopted a Roman way of life (‘Romanised’ Britons), worshipped many different gods and goddesses and would travel to local shrines to pray for assistance and protection with specific troubles. Many would vow that if they did get help from the god or goddess, they’d return to the shrine to make an offering in thanks.
You could either bring a precious offering of your own, or leave a votive ‘plaque’, a shaped and decorated metal strip specifically crafted as a temple gift. The pieces of jewellery in the hoard are probably personal items that were offered at the temple by different people. The votive plaques are all similar in style, so it’s possible that they were purchased from a stall selling standard plaques that could then be personalised by engraving your own prayer or vow. Silver votive plaques have been found elsewhere, but gold plaques are much rarer, and only two others have been found in Britain – the Ashwell Hoard contains seven.
Britain's Secret Treasures Page 4