BEAUFORT, N.C. — A formal ceremony is marking the end of an eight-week expedition to recover artifacts from the ship believed to have belonged to Blackbeard.
The ceremony was scheduled for Friday in Beaufort.
The event highlights the conclusion of the expedition by archaeologists to recover artifacts from Queen Anne’s Revenge. Since 1997, several of the cannons and more than 250,000 artifacts have been retrieved including gold, platters, glass, beads, rope, the anchor and several ballast stones.
In 1717, Blackbeard captured a French slave ship and renamed it Queen Anne’s Revenge. Blackbeard settled in Bath and received a governor’s pardon. Volunteers with the Royal Navy killed him in Ocracoke Inlet in November 1718, five months after the ship thought to be Queen Anne’s Revenge sank. (source)
BEAUFORT — State underwater archaeologists headed out Tuesday in search of artifacts at the Queen Anne’s Revenge shipwreck in Beaufort Inlet.
This is the third week of an eight-week dive expedition to the shipwreck sailed and eventually run aground by the infamous 18th century British pirate Blackbeard.
While the ship was sunk off the coast of Fort Macon in 1718, it wasn’t until its discovery in 1996 that it began giving up secrets on the Golden Age of Piracy.
Since its discovery about 25 feet underwater, state archaeologists have recovered hundreds of thousands of artifacts, including several cannons, a ship’s bell and anchor. Divers have excavated more than 50 percent of the site and hope to complete another 20 percent by Oct. 26, when the expedition ends. Read more.
A newly restored cannon recovered from the 1718 shipwreck of Blackbeard’s flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge (QAR),will be on display for the public in late February at the N.C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort.
Other artifacts will include a pewter decorated wooden knife handle, cannon wadding, and a hand grenade.
Blackbeard, otherwise known as Edward Thatcher (or “Teach” in some circles), was perhaps the most notorious pirate along the eastern seaboard of North America during the heyday of ocean-going piracy between the late 17th and first quarter of the 18th centuries. In June of 1718 his fleet attempted to enter Old Topsail Inlet, NC, now known as Beaufort Inlet. His flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge and the Adventure ran aground at the Inlet and was subsequently abandoned by Blackbeard and many of his crew, fleeing to the north. He and some of his fellow crew members were eventually killed by an expedition of the Royal Navy the following November. Read more.
A 2,000-pound cannon hauled up from the wreck of Blackbeard’s flagship off the North Carolina coast last week has stirred more interest in the infamous 18th-century pirate and brought more visitors to Beaufort, a small seaport near the site of the wreck. And since state funding for the work on the Queen Anne’s Revenge has all but dried up, archaeologists may have to rely on that public interest to resume work at the shipwreck next spring.
North Carolina State Archaeologist Steve Claggett said funding for next season’s work is uncertain. “We’ll do our darndest to find money and keep working,” Claggett said. “I’ll be optimistic and say there’s a small chance we won’t go back.”
It takes about $150,000 per season to fund the work at the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Archaeologists work at the site when conditions are most favorable in late May and June and in September and October. Read more.
RALEIGH, N.C. - A piece of pirate history that’s been resting on the ocean floor for nearly than 300 years was brought to the surface Wednesday morning and is on its way to the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort.
Underwater archaeologists brought the eight-foot cannon from the wreck of the Queen Anne’s Revenge around 11 a.m. Wednesday morning.
The cannon will be on display at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort Wednesday afternoon.
The cannon has been resting at the bottom of the Beaufort Inlet since Blackbeard’s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge. The ship wrecked off North Carolina’s coast in 1718.
To date, 12 other cannons have been recovered from the site. Read more.
BEAUFORT — The much anticipated “Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge” exhibit at the N.C. Maritime Museum received a decidedly grand opening Saturday.
About 1,800 had visited the waterfront museum within the first three hours the 1,200-square-foot exhibit, with more than 300 artifacts from the QAR wreckage, was open to the public.
Among them was Carolyn Stockwell of Jacksonville who was there with her two sons, Teddy, 4, and Leo, 3.
“It’s really fantastically put together,” she said after viewing the exhibit. “Leo is really into pirates … He’s very interested in weaponry,” she added, which Leo confirmed with an enthusiastic, “I love swords.”
His brother, Teddy, piped up that his favorite part was the swords, too.
Before diving into the exhibit, she, along with the other hundreds of visitors, waited in a more than 30-minute line that wrapped throughout the museum’s other exhibits.
The journey to bring the QAR exhibit to the maritime museum has been 15 years in the making. Read more.
Archaeologists have successfully raised a nearly 3,000-pound anchor from the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the ship that pirate Blackbeard and his crew intentionally grounded near Beaufort in 1718. It is the largest artifact yet recovered from the wreck of the notorious pirate’s flagship.
Archaeologists this morning successfully raised an anchor from the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the ship that pirate Blackbeard and his crew intentionally grounded near Beaufort in 1718.
The nearly 3000-pound anchor is the largest artifact yet recovered from the wreck of the notorious pirate’s flagship.
The anchor, one of four carried aboard the ship, was atop a pile of debris, which appears to be the remnants of the middle part of the ship, including its cargo hold, said Mark Wilde-Ramsing, a deputy state archaeologist and director of the Queen Anne’s Revenge project.
Next week, Wilde-Ramsing said, researchers hope to dig a small test hole into the side of the pile where the anchor was removed to get a sense of what else might be hidden there. They’re particularly keen to find organic material such as seeds and spores that could help detail the pirates’ stops in exotic ports. Read more.
BEAUFORT — It seems storm clouds are brewing over the raising of a 3,000-pound anchor in Beaufort Inlet that was originally scheduled for Thursday at the shipwreck site presumed to be the Queen Anne’s Revenge, flagship of Blackbeard.
Because of bad weather, the anchor raising has been postponed, and according to a press release issued Tuesday by Maryanne Friend with the state Cultural Resources Department, the raising will take place possibly Friday or Wednesday of next week.
As state underwater archeologists are wrestling with the weather, the discoverer of the shipwreck, Capt. Mike Daniel of Jupiter, Fla., issued a press release Tuesday denouncing the raising of the anchor and other items contained in the large pile of artifacts located underneath the anchor in the central part of the wreck site.
“The remains of the QAR, our nation’s most historically important pirate site and a former slave ship, is a living reef that is made up of cannons and anchors that are all fused together with an encrustation. The reef, with a wide variety of sea life attached to it, has protected the wreck site from weather for almost 300 years,” he said in his statement. Read more.
