Monday, June 17, 2019

6/17/19 Report - 1715 Fleet Lead Screw Top Bottle Find. 37 Words for Treasure and A Bit About Early Piracy. Site for Browsing.


Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.


Lead Top and Collar on Old Glass Bottle Top.
Photo provided by Scott C.
A couple days ago I showed what I thought was a collar for a lead top for an old glass bottle possibly from the 17th or 18th century and asked if anyone had photos of a lead or pewter top still on the bottle.  I wanted to see the entire thing as it would be on the bottle.  Well, as usual my readers came through, and Scott C. sent this photo of a lead top as it would be found on the glass.

The Odyssey Virtual Museum web site that I previously quoted said that lead and pewter tops were used from the 1600s and into the 1700s, and were found on 1715 sites as well as on the Atocha and other wrecks.

The photo above shows how the threaded collar goes around the neck and the top screws onto that.  That is what I wanted to see.   Thanks much Scott.

Below is another view that shows the top unscrewed from the collar.

Lead Bottle Top and Collar
Photo by Scott C.
It looks to me like I incorrectly labeled what I thought was a collar.   It looks like what I showed was more likely a separated piece of the top rather than the collar.  I say that because on the inside there was a raised ridge.  On the collar, the raised ridges would be on the outside, if it was like the ones shown here.

What I previously showed appeared to be more like the item on the right in the photo below.

Lead Bottle Top Parts.
Photo by Scott c.

I showed some of these a few days ago that I found in the Odyssey Virtual Museum.

Thanks again Scott!   The intact items on the glass was what I was hoping to see.

That is something that you might not have thought of - 17th century and later screw-top bottles.

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I received an email from Susan E. commenting on the koine Greek word for treasure that I gave the other day.

And back when I showed an old ad that used the word "celerity," Alberto S. looked up the word and used it.

I enjoy the evolution of language and word origins too.

Below is a table showing how you say "treasure" in a variety of languages.  One is the name of a metal detector company.  Do you know which?

Tesoro is the Spanish word for treasure and also the name of the metal detector company.

Did you notice the Estonian and Finnish words for treasure?

So is that why pirates are always saying arrr?

(Here is the source link for the site giving the European words. https://www.indifferentlanguages.com/words/treasure)


The ChildrensMuseum.org web site says, But did pirates really "arr" all the time? Probably not, though it's tough to say exactly how most pirates really talked. There are of course no audio recordings of pirate speech.  There isn't much written down by pirates themselves, and witnesses have not written down any extensive lists of quotes or pirate phrases.

So they don't really know.

So is it just a coincidence that the Estonian and Finnish words for treasure are aare and aarre?  

Maybe, but it appears that Estonia, just across from Finland, was a center of piracy going way back.

To quote the NordicEstonia.com web site (link below), Viking-age treasures from Estonia mostly contain silver coins and bars. Compared to its close neighbors, Saaremaa has the richest finds of Viking treasures after Gotland in Sweden. This strongly suggests that Estonia was an important transit country during the Viking era.  Estonia constitutes one of the richest territories in the Baltic for hoards from the 11th and the 12th centuries...

Did I just stumble onto something here, or is it just an entertaining coincidence?  

Here is the NordicEstonia link.

http://www.nordicestonia.com/nordic/estonian-vikings/

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Here is a good web site for browsing coins and artifacts of various cultures and ages.


http://www.ancientresource.com/lots/ancient_jewelry/jewelry_celtic.html

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I just saw where South Florida has been having some good local storms and has had some good erosion.  I'll have more on that tomorrow.

On the Treasure Coast we've been having thunder showers later in the day, but mostly only one foot surf.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net