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