The wreck was found last autumn on the ocean floor within "a couple of

miles" of the beach - 279 years after it foundered on a sandbar off

Beaufort Inlet. Divers recovered artifacts including a brass bell

inscribed with the year 1709, a cannon ball and a blunderbuss, a short

rifle with a broad muzzle.



Officials say they are 80 per cent certain the wreck is that of

Blackbeard's flagship.



"We're calling it the most important underwater archaeological discovery

since the USS Monitor was found off Cape Hatteras in 1973," says Dr

Jeffrey Crow, director of the North Carolina Division of Archives and

History. "We haven't absolutely identified it. But all indications are

that this is the Queen Anne's Revenge."



Researchers based their belief on the location of the wreck and where

Blackbeard's ship was known to have run aground, and the artifacts,

which dated the wreck to the period when he roamed the North Carolina

coast.



The Queen Anne's Revenge, a French ship captured and rearmed by

Blackbeard in 1717, and a smaller accompanying ship, the Adventure,

were known to have run aground in June 1718, Crow says.



The wreck - discovered by Intersal Inc, a private research firm based in

Boca Raton, Florida - had not been mapped or surveyed and its exact

location is being kept secret for security reasons. The state

eventually will salvage the site and put recovered artifacts on display

in a museum.



Researchers are uncertain how much of the ship might be intact under the

ocean floor. A small portion of wood is sticking above the sand.



Crow says that if the wood had been exposed for nearly three centuries,

it would have disintegrated long ago.



"With two hurricanes that swept through recently, it's quite possible

that they exposed part of the ship," Crow says. "A good bit of it is

probably still under the sand."



Crow says it is unlikely any treasure would be found on the wreck

because Blackbeard had time to remove it before the ship was swallowed

by the sea.



But it could contain artifacts that will give researchers new insight

into the life of pirates and 18th-century maritime history.



"For example, we know that he had blockaded Charleston and confiscated a

large amount of medicine because his crew was ill," Crow says. "Maybe

we'll find some jars of medicine that will tell us about the diseases."



Blackbeard, whose real name was Edward Teach, had been heading north

after his week-long blockade of Charleston harbour, when Queen Anne's

Revenge ran aground on a sandbar. The Adventure came to his aid, but

both ships sank.



Blackbeard was beheaded by Royal Navy Lt Robert Maynard during

hand-to-hand combat at Okracoke in the North Carolina barrier islands

in November of 1718.



Reuters