The pirate Blackbeard's flagship may finally
be yielding its identity after nearly 300 years on the ocean floor.
Though researchers have yet to find definitive proof, evidence
continues to surface off the coast of North Carolina that wreckage
there was once the vessel known as
Queen Anne's Revenge.
The wreck has generated attention ever since its 1996 discovery
in Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina.
The wreckage includes a dozen cannon and large anchors rated
for a 350-ton (355-metric-ton) ship, found amid a mound of debris
where records indicate Blackbeard's flagship ran aground in 1718.
"We have extensive historical records, and there is no evidence
of any [other] vessel of this kind of armament sinking anywhere
during the 18th century on this coast," said Mark Wilde-Ramsing,
director of the Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project,
a consortium of researchers investigating the wreck.
Shipwreck records in the region are surprisingly complete. They
include accounts of ships lost decades before the QAR and
in more remote areas.
"There were people living in the area, and a [different]
wreck of this size should not have gone unrecorded," Wilde-Ramsing
said. "Beaufort was a little fishing village, and really
less than a handful of ships that size were ever reported in the
area."
Blackbeard captured a French slaver known as La Concorde
in 1717 and renamed it Queen Anne's Revenge. He captained
the ship until it ran aground, perhaps intentionally, at Beaufort
Inlet in June 1718.
Some accounts at the time suggested that Blackbeard wanted to
break up his crew of some 300 to 400 men and keep the choicest
booty for himself.
The ship is still officially classified as "believed to
be" the QAR. But mounting evidence suggests to many
that the wreck is that of Blackbeard's ship.
"It's not like CSI," said Cheryl Ward,
a Florida State University maritime archaeologist not involved
in the project. "In the real world nobody solves anything
in a 24-hour period. We may never get a definitive answer, but
I think that they've got a very good case for this being the Queen
Anne's Revenge. I certainly know of nothing they've found
to suggest that it can't be."
Evidence Rises From the Deep
Assorted cannonballs and ammunition found at the wreck suggest
that the ship had been significantly armed. To date the site has
yielded 24 cannon.
Researchers have recovered a bell engraved with the date 1705
and a blunderbuss musket barrel dating from the same period. The
average date of the 25 datable artifacts found so far is 1706.
Radiocarbon dating of hull timbers, performed at Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, suggests that the ship
was built between 1690 and 1710. Unfortunately, no known records
indicate where and when La Concorde was constructed.
Among the more intriguing finds is a wineglass stem dated to
1714-15 during the reign of Britain's King George I, who succeeded
Queen Anne.
The glassware commemorated George's coronation, but to pirates
it may have had a very different symbolism.
"You think of these pirates who had been fighting for Queen
Anne as privateers, and when she died this German became King,"
Wilde-Ramsing said. "They used that as an excuse to begin
attacking anyone-even their own [British] ships. Your mind kind
of goes back to some interesting toasts they might have made to
King George with this glass."
Yet nothing has definitively identified the ship. It may be that
nothing ever will.
"My opinion is that it's likely the Queen Anne's Revenge,"
said Florida state archaeologist Roger Smith, who is not a member
of the project. "As to proving it beyond a shadow of a doubt,
I don't know whether that's possible. It's a pirate ship as opposed
to a merchant ship, so you're not going to find a nameplate or
something like that."
Some researchers harbor doubts that the wreck is that of the
QAR. Most of their reservations center on a cannon that
bears the number 1730 scratched into its surface.
"If this is a date, it definitely eliminates the identification
of the site as Blackbeard's 1718 shipwreck," states a paper
co-written by former QAR project conservator Wayne Lusardi
and East Carolina University archaeologists Bradley Rodgers and
Nathan Richards. They expressed their doubts in The International
Journal of Nautical Archaeology this spring.
Still, several researchers dispute that the number is a date,
suggesting that it refers instead to the weapon's price or its
weight.
Shipwreck "One of the Best"
All agree that the site is special.
"I've seen a lot of colonial shipwrecks, but this is one
of the best," said Smith, the Florida state archaeologist.
"It has a bit of everything-lower hull, cargo, personal possessions,
arms and ammo, anchors. It's kind of like a site that's been lost
in time."
The unique wreck and the name recognition of the QAR have
attracted experts from diverse archaeological fields to work side
by side, Smith added.
"The days of John Wayne archaeology are finally over,"
he said. "Today we do it with a lot of different heads put
together-experts in ceramics, wood, fabric, geology, ship construction,
and more."
The romance of pirate lore has also generated public interest
in maritime archaeology, history, and the colonial era.
"Some people are never going to believe it's the Queen Anne's
Revenge, and I think that's part of the mystery and the excitement,"
Wilde-Ramsing said.
"I'd be very, very surprised if it's anything else-but we've
excavated less than 5 percent of the site, so there's a lot of
interesting stuff still out there."
A
researcher with the Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project
surveys wreckage believed by some to be the ruins of the pirate
Blackbeard's flagship. The wreck has generated attention from
scientists and amateur enthusiasts alike since it was first discovered
in Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina in 1996. In recent months, the
site has yielded new clues that suggest it is the resting place
of Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge, which ran aground
off the North Carolina coast in 1718.
Photograph by Julep Gillman-Bryan,
courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.
