The mystery of the 200 year old urine bottle!

A mystery continues over a 200-year-old urine bottle found at a Cleethorpes building site.

It was discovered by workers who were digging trenches at a property in Sea View Street last year.

The bottle was analyzed by Zara Yates, a student at the University of Lincoln, who used a scanner commonly used at crime scenes.

Ms Yates said the builders initially thought it was a bottle of rum and they were planning to drink it.

“Thankfully the project manager was on site and recognized the importance of the item,” he said.

“But we found that it’s actually urine, not alcohol.

“So it’s a good thing the manager stepped in to stop them.”

Ms Yates told the BBC that she had used a combination of techniques to understand the age and contents of the bottle.

He said that the bottle shape was introduced in 1790 and that its unevenness showed that it was hand-blown, and as molds for making bottles were only introduced in 1840, it must have been made before that date.

A multi-spectral imager, which throws different wavelengths of light at the object, revealed that the contents were bodily fluids, the chief of which was urine.

The university has suggested that it is a so-called “witches’ bottle” buried to keep evil away from the house.

Another theory is that it was placed there by a sailor to ensure safe travel.

Josephine McKenzie, head of the university’s cultural heritage conservation department, said it was rare to find such an old bottle completely intact.

“We often get a lot of ceramics, a lot of textiles, but we get glass, especially something like this, very little,” he said.

“Zara has done an amazingly good job of sourcing its ingredients and it really exceeded our expectations.”

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