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)
CHAPEL HILL — Perhaps the best clue in more than 420 years to North Carolina’s most famous mystery has just been revealed.
The remains of the Lost Colony, it turns out, could sit under an Arnold Palmer-designed golf course in Bertie County.
Researchers at the British Museum in London, acting at the request of a group of historians and archaeologists here, have found a symbol hidden on an ancient map that could show where members of the English colony established on Roanoke Island in 1587 moved.
The elaborate “Virginea Pars” map was created by members of Sir Walter Raleigh’s Roanoke Colony expeditions of 1584-1590, the first attempt to establish an English Colony in the New World.
The map, which is unusually accurate for its time, shows the coastal area from the Chesapeake Bay to Cape Lookout, and pinpoints the locations of several native American villages.
Brent Lane, an adjunct professor of Heritage Education at the UNC Kenan Institute and a scholar with the First Colony Foundation, was studying a map made by the leader of the 1587 colony expedition, John White, when he became intrigued with two patches of paper pasted over small parts of it. 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.
Diving archaeologists are in the midst of a monthlong expedition to the sunken wreckage of the pirate Blackbeard’s ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, off the North Carolina coast, but the weather is not cooperating.
“Mother Nature is keeping us away from the site at least for most of this week,” said mission leader Mark Wilde-Ramsing of the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology. “We’ll do what we can; we still expect to raise a cannon.”
The Queen Anne’s Revenge sank off the coast of North Carolina in 1718 when Blackbeard (Edward Teach) ran it into the ground while entering an inlet.
Hurricanes have scoured the remains of the ship over the years, and the wreckage was in bad shape in 2006 before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built sand berms (small piles of sand) to buffer the wreckage from the gusty winds and ocean swells. Earlier this year, Hurricane Irene socked the North Carolina coast, not far from the wreckage, but the ship’s remains seem to have held up well, Wilde-Ramsing told OurAmazingPlanet. Read more.
BEAUFORT – The world of Blackbeard and his fellow pirates comes to life with a new exhibit and events this summer at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort.
In 1718, the notorious pirate ran his flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge (QAR), aground in Beaufort Inlet, roughly two miles from where the Museum stands today. On Saturday, June 11, the Museum will open the “Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge” exhibit, showcasing the artifacts and history of the wreckage.
“This is the most significant exhibition the Museum has undertaken in several decades,” said Museum Director Joseph Schwarzer. “It will be the most definitive and comprehensive display of QAR material to date.” Read more.
BEAUFORT, N.C. - For the first time in nearly 300 years, Blackbeard’s flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, returns to North Carolina.
It’s happening this June in a new exhibit at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort.
It was 1718 when the notorious pirate ran his ship aground in Beaufort Inlet. That’s roughly two miles from where the Museum stands today.
“We’re piecing together untold stories of Blackbeard, his crew and the ship, that we’ll be able to share with the public through the diligent work of the Queen Anne’s Revenge Shipwreck Project team and the artifacts they’ve recovered and conserved,” said North Carolina Maritime Museums Director Joseph Schwarzer. Read more.
