The words “witch bottle” and “witch’s mark” make these finds sound like one uniform tradition. They are material traces from different centuries and places. Excavated bottles, building marks, and collected charms preserve different details about their makers and settings.
01Concealed vessel · Mainly seventeenth centuryWitch Bottles: History, Contents and ArchaeologyWhat excavated bottles and their contents reveal about early modern protection, healing, and the limits of a modern label.→02Building deposit · Examples from medieval to modern buildingsConcealed Shoes: Why Old Shoes Were Hidden in WallsWhy worn shoes appear inside walls and floors, and how an individual find can challenge a universal “witchcraft” explanation.→03Incised building mark · Medieval to nineteenth-century examplesHexafoil Witch Marks: Daisy Wheel Meaning and HistoryThe six-petalled compass design appears in barns, houses, churches, and furniture; its presence does not prove one meaning.→04Letter mark · Especially early modern buildingsMarian Marks: VV and M Witch Marks in Old BuildingsWhy joined letters are sometimes read as appeals to Mary, and why historians warn against treating every W shape as certain.→05Charred timber mark · Recorded in early houses and later fabricTaper Burn Marks on Old Timbers: Meaning and TheoriesWhat small teardrop burns reveal, how deliberate marking is inferred, and why a fire-protection meaning remains a theory.→06Collected plant objects · Nineteenth-century museum acquisitionsRowan Cross Charms: Folk Protection Against WitchcraftThe Oxford museum’s fragile rowan charms combine physical construction, nineteenth-century collection histories, and regional stories of protection.→07Historical overview · Early modern to nineteenth-century evidenceProtective Magic Finds: How to Read Ritual DepositsHow concealed bottles, shoes, carved marks, and rowan charms differ in material, setting, and surviving evidence.→