Photo: 15 cannon have been recovered from the site so far Photo: Flickr/ncculture
Archaeologists have succeeded in raising another two cannons from Blackbeard’s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge (QAR).
It was a tough operation though – the archaeologists from the Underwater Archaeology Branch in the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, has originally intended to raise eight cannons, but they were thwarted repeatedly by bad weather.
The two six-pounder cannons make a total of 15 in total recovered since the recovery project began - 27 have been discovered at the site so far.
These latest cannons will now undergo cleaning and conservation before going on display at the North Carolina Maritime Museum.
Divers will return to the site in August and work through till October – the aim is to retrieve all artefacts by the end of 2014.
The wreck was rediscovered in 1996 by Intersal Inc. Since the recovery project began in 1997, around 280,000 artefacts have been retrieved from the site including cannons, anchors and the ship’s bell.
The Queen Anne’s Revenge ran aground off the coast of North Carolina in 1718. It was the flagship of Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard, one of the most notorious pirates who plagued shipping lanes off North America and the Caribbean in the early-eighteenth century.
More information from www.qaronline.org