The Queens Report Winter 2008

DIRECTOR'S REPORT - The highly successful fall expedition brought the area of fully excavated shipwreck remains past the 33% mark. At this pace we are projected to complete recovery by the fall of 2010, at which time all QAR artifacts will be safely stored at our conservation laboratory in Greenville. Many of the items that have completed cleaning, analysis and stabilization have made their way back to the coast and are on display at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort. The project's efforts this spring will focus on examining concretions using our newly purchased X-ray unit, creating a detailed, digital map of all tagged artifacts that have been recovered to date, and providing access to our analysis via the newly launched QAR Technical Report and Bulletin Series.

Much of our work would be impossible or greatly diminished without the help from numerous people with a wide range of expertise. Most often their services are donated. This edition of the Queen's Report recognizes one stalwart associate of the project, Dr. Linda Carnes-McNaughton, who has made significant contributions. We thank her and all those who continue to help the QAR project succeed in so many ways.

Dr. Linda Carnes-McNaughton, Curation Manager and Historical Archaeologist for the Cultural Resources Management Program at Fort Bragg, N.C., is one of the many volunteers working for the QAR Shipwreck Project. Linda's specialty is in the areas of ceramics and glassware, however, it seems there is hardly a historic artifact type that she hasn't analyzed. Dr. Linda Carnes-McNaughton When speaking with her, one is never sure if she is a philosopher, poet, archaeologist, potter, anthropologist, or scientist. She likes to think that she is something of all of them, but that her university degrees in anthropology have made her largely a humanist. Archaeology, she says, is a tactile or touching science because one can handle its products. Often, when visiting sites or holding artifacts, Linda feels a spiritual contact with those who built or made them. Why does she work for the Army? By federal law the Army is required to identify, evaluate, and, where possible, preserve cultural resources within the boundaries of Fort Bragg, one big chunk of land owned by the federal government since 1918. She and five full-time staff plus contract groups of professional archaeologists have recorded over 4,200 sites there so far, with about 420 of them historical. She is currently supervising the final stages of research on the Argyle Community, an area of known Scottish immigrants who settled there in the 18th and 19th centuries. We asked her if she believed the shipwreck we are excavating is Blackbeard's flagship. She replied that for her it was a slow and steady process of observation and analysis of the data, but as the evidence mounted, so did her belief that it really is the Queen Anne's Revenge.

LOGAN'S TRADING COMPANY TO THE RESCUE - Over the past two years, numerous concretions have been brought up from the QAR shipwreck. These concretions may hold small artifacts, but first they must be submersed in solutions until they can be examined and taken apart.A big problem for the conservation team has been how to manage all this with limited space and budget. Turns out that Logan's Trading Company, a garden center in Raleigh, N.C. had just what was needed: hard plastic crates, sturdy and large enoughto hold small concretions but light enough to be handled easily. Crates being used at the Lab and on site!

Crates being used at the Lab and on site!

These crates were originally used to ship various bulbs from Holland. Would they be willing to donate some to the QAR Shipwreck Project? Yes, and over the past two years, they have given us approximately 250 of them that now hold more than 1,000 concretions in holding tanks in our Greenville laboratory. Twenty-four inches long, eighteen inches wide and nine inches deep, the crates are stacked and perfect for the job. Logan's is a family affair operation with numerous awards and recognitions as a garden center. Founded in 1965, they expanded in 1991 into a new facility with the purchase and renovation of a closed railroad station in downtown Raleigh, N.C. They advertise that they place service foremost in their business, not only for customers but also for vendors and employees. We are here to tell them that we have experienced this good service and thank them heartily for their help.

SOLVING ARTIFACT MYSTERIES - Imagine, if you will, the complexities involved in properly sorting, storing, identifying, cataloging, and preserving artifacts excavated from the wreck site of the Queen Anne's Revenge. More than 2,000 pieces brought up in the 2007 excavations are being carefully examined at our Greenville laboratory on the East Carolina University's West Research Campus, Of these, 1,142 are concretions that must be disassembled. Some items can be identified because they are partially visible on the surface of the concretions. X-raying the concretions will help determine what other artifacts may be hidden inside.

Eight hundred and sixty-one artifacts were not in concretion, meaning they were either found lying in the sand or brought up with sand from dredge pumps. Most of them are identifiable. Let your imagination continue in considering how these came to be at the site and who used them nearly 300 years ago. What kind of man smoked from the pipe bowl found with the stem missing, and what kind of tobacco did he use? Who drank from the five wine bottles that have survived intact after nearly three centuries under the ocean? Where was the wine made, was it brought aboard or stolen from another ship, and if it wasn't fit to drink after months at sea, did a sailor drink it anyway? What of the buttons and cufflinks found? Were they torn from a shirt during the haste of ship abandonment or were they spares stored away somewhere? Two pieces of bone, identified as "possible worked pieces", meaning they appear to have been carved. Carved from what, a pig, a cow, or a human bone? One item appears to be a piece of jewelry. What kind of jewelry would a pirate wear and was it lost earlier on the ship or on leaving it? And there is some gold dust! It's not enough to get excited about in terms of monetary value, since its total weight is only 0.01 lbs, but its presence on the wreck is a very important part of unraveling the story; was it stored away somewhere and forgotten or dropped overboard as smaller boats rowed away from the grounded Queen Anne's Revenge? Some of the artifacts cannot be identified and may never be. One is a six-inch slender tube made much like a cannon barrel. Was it maybe a piece of a toy cannon destined to be given to a child back home?

Now, for all those young students out there who regularly check out our website, and for all those adults who still have youthful hearts, try one more exercise in imagination. If it were possible, would you be willing to trade one week of your life for one day in 1718 on the Queen Anne's Revenge? Think about being aboard, not as a pirate, of course, but as a casual observer wandering about the ship looking at these items before they became artifacts? Would you do it? Tell us about it!!! qar@ncdcr.gov

2008 QAR LAB OPEN DAY - The second Open Day at the NC Queen Anne's Revenge Archaeological Conservation Laboratory at ECU West Research Campus in Greenville on Saturday, April 26, 11 a.m-3 p.m., will allow the public to see a wide range of objects including, parts of pewter plates, glassware, ceramics, copper alloy objects, cannon and ship's timbers recently recovered from the shipwreck believed to be that of the pirate Blackbeard and his crew. Also on view will be the largest timber artifact recovered so far - the part of the ship's sternpost, recovered in Fall 2007.

Artifacts in all stages of conservation will be displayed, those still covered with concretions of hardened sand and salts and attached to other objects, those in treatment tanks undergoing desalination, and those that have completed the conservation process and are almost ready to be exhibited in the N. C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort, the repository for artifacts. Conservators will explain the processes and answer questions about the objects on view. In addition to conservation lab director Sarah Watkins Kenney, conservators Wendy Welsh and Shanna Daniel will discuss the work of the lab located at the West Research Campus at East Carolina University. Project Director Mark Wilde-Ramsing and archaeologists David Moore, Richard Lawrence, Nathan Henry, will comment on diving at the wreck site and what it reveals about 18th century seafaring.

Almost a third of the wreck has now been excavated and at least 100,000 artifacts have been recovered from the shipwreck site since its discovery in Beaufort Inlet in 1996. For additional information about the Open Day, call (252) 744-6721. The N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, a state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina's arts, history and culture, administers the Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project and the QAR Archaeological Conservation Laboratory.

Credits and Acknowledgements - The articles for this edition of the Queen's Report were written by Sim Wilde, QAR Education Coordinator, with the exception of the Director's Report (Mark Wilde-Ramsing) and the Open House Announcement (Sarah Watkins-Kenney). Photographers include Wendy Welsh & Karen Browning. The excavation site plan was created by Chris Southerly. Karen Browning is responsible for QAR website development, graphics, and newsletter posting.