POLAND, BALTIC SEA—According to a report in Livescience, a 200-year-old stoneware bottle excavated from a shipwreck off the Polish coast contains an alcohol distillate, perhaps vodka or a type of gin called jenever. And, say the researchers, the spirit is still drinkable even after two centuries at the bottom of the sea. Originally the archaeologists thought the bottle contained a popular type of mineral water called “Selters” whose name is engraved on the outside, and which is still sold in the area. But once they popped the cork and analyzed the vessel’s contents, they discovered its true contents. The shipwreck also yielded ceramic bowls, and dinnerware, though project head Tomasz Bednarz says the bottle of booze “is our most valuable find.”
A 200-Year-Old Bottle’s Surprising Contents
News August 15, 2014
Recommended Articles
Digs & Discoveries November/December 2024
Nineteenth-Century Booze Cruise
Digs & Discoveries September/October 2024
Shackleton’s Last Try
Digs & Discoveries September/October 2023
Sunken Cargo
Features July/August 2023
An Elegant Enigma
The luxurious possessions of a seventeenth-century woman continue to intrigue researchers a decade after they were retrieved from a shipwreck
-
Features July/August 2014
The Tomb of the Silver Hands
Long-buried evidence of an Etruscan noble family
(Marco Merola) -
Letter From Scotland July/August 2014
Living on the Edge
Were the residents of a Scottish hillside immoral squatters or hard-working farmers?
(Jeff Oliver, University of Aberdeen) -
Artifacts July/August 2014
Neolithic Wand
(Courtesy L.C. Tiera) -
Digs & Discoveries July/August 2014
The Video Game Graveyard
(Photo: Taylor Hatmaker, Courtesy Andrew Reinhard)