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By Michelle Wagner - Outer Banks Voice

Maritime archeologists have just completed a survey of the Scuppernong River and Bulls Bay near Columbia, uncovering potential new shipwrecks and data about known vessels that were wrecked or abandoned.

The Scuppernong River has a rich history of settlements and maritime industry, said Nathan Richards, a maritime studies professor at East Carolina University and the interim head of the University of North Carolina Coastal Studies Institute’s Maritime Heritage Program.
 

“This area is really untapped,” he said of the Scuppernong River. “This is the first extensive archeological survey done of the whole river system.”
 

Prior to this venture, limited research was done in the late 1980s and early 1990s by the state near the Columbia waterfront. Some artifacts and timbers of the well-known passenger steamer the Estelle Randall were recovered. The steamer sank near the Columbia waterfront in 1910.
 

Richards, who led East Carolina University’s Advanced Methods in Maritime Archeology class in the project, says he is now compiling the findings of the survey, which provides never-before-seen high resolution imagery of the river bottom using side-scan sonar.

Magnetometers were also used to detect human-made disturbances on the river floor. Both tools are standard in shipwreck discovery.

The survey now gives maritime archaelogists a much better picture of the Scuppernong riverbed and its shipwrecks. The imagery shows how intact not only the Estelle Randall is, but other shipwrecks in the river that little is known about.

The 200-foot Estelle Randall, Richards said, was the perfect shipwreck to show students how to use the side-scan sonar and magnetometers because its whereabouts are so obvious and known.

“You can throw a stone off the dock there and hit the shipwreck,” he said.
 

Students also surveyed about nine other potential shipwrecks. Once the information is compiled, researchers will have a submerged cultural inventory of the region.
 

“We will know what we have and what the next steps to take are and if there is a good reason to send divers down to get more information,” Richards said.

From JD News

Although many in Eastern North Carolina suffered as a result of Hurricane Irene and there was significant damage and loss of trees in the area, some good news did come from post-hurricane inspections: The wreck of Blackbeard’s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, remained intact and without significant disruption as a result of the swirling waters and heavy winds.

That’s very good news for the marine archaeologists, lab personnel, divers and other team members involved in excavating the ship’s ruins, which were discovered on the ocean floor off Carteret County about 15 years ago.

Because the pirate’s ship has remained in its home on the bottom of the ocean for nearly 300 years, the site is both unprotected from the whims of nature and delicate by virtue of its antiquity.

Since discovery of the vessel, archaeologists attached to the project have worked feverishly to prevent additional damage to the artifacts associated with the ship. A hurricane coming ashore so close to the wreck was not fortuitous. 

Archaeologists say they were worried about additional “scour” to the ship and its contents. Scour is a term that describes protective layers of sand washing away and exposing artifacts.

However, preliminary examinations of the site left the excavation team feeling optimistic about the project’s future and that’s a good thing, both from historical and economic perspectives.

Blackbeard, or Edward Teach, was an English-born pirate who worked the East Coast of the U.S., as well as nearby islands.

Although reports say he rarely (if ever) put to death those upon which he preyed, historians also admit there would be few (if any) witnesses to testify to those fatalities, if they had taken place.

From BBC News

Naval veterans' associations say that salvage work on three British warships is desecrating war graves.

HMS Aboukir, HMS Hogue and HMS Cressy were sunk 22 miles off the Dutch coast in 1914 by a German submarine and are the resting place of 1,500 sailors.

The Times says Dutch salvage vessels are now searching the cruisers for scrap metal.

But the International Maritime Confederation says that "our sailors should be allowed to rest in peace".

It has signed a letter in the newspaper, stating: "We, the presidents of associations of European naval veterans forming the International Maritime Confederation, suggest that no such desecration would take place in graves on land."

Vice Admiral John McAnally, president of the Royal Naval Association and president of the International Maritime Confederation, which includes European naval veterans' associations, said: "This is the resting place of 1,500 sailors, people like us.

"We think they should be treated with due care and respect, and not regarded as a source of profitable scrap metal."

Vice Adm McAnally said there would be "a tremendous fuss" if something like this happened on land.

He added: "The fact is sunken ships in international waters are under no jurisdiction. As I am aware, the government shares the same frustration as we do."

Full story...

By Traci Watson - Science Mag

Ceramic jugs known as amphorae were the cardboard boxes of ancient Greece. Produced in the millions, they contained goods that were shipped across the Mediterranean and beyond.

But what was in them ? In a new study that uses a DNA-based method inspired by crime-scene protocols, scientists say they've uncovered a cornucopia of cargoes, but other researchers are skeptical of the technique.

Shipwrecks and other sites have yielded plenty of intact amphorae. Maddeningly, nearly all are empty, devoid of obvious clues to what they once held. Researchers have scraped bits of ceramic from the vessel's interior to look for leftover genetic material.

In the new study, however, they also turned to a less destructive method straight from television'sCSI: swiping the amphorae with a swab.

The idea came from the Massachusetts State Police, whom the investigators called for leads.

A team led by maritime archaeologist Brendan Foley of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution tested the new protocol on nine 5th to 3rd century B.C.E. amphorae that had been languishing in a government storage room in Athens for more than a decade.

All had been hauled up in fishermen's nets before being handed over to the Greek government in the 1990s.

To reveal what the vessels once held, the researchers collected DNA from the amphorae and mixed it with snippets of DNA from a selection of plants. When amphora DNA stuck to one of these genetic probes, the investigators knew they'd found a match.

The scientists also sequenced amphora DNA, then searched a DNA database for the same sequences.

The results, published online last week by the Journal of Archaeological Science, suggest that swabbing works better than shaving the ceramic. And the data seem to show something less surprising as well: The ancient Greeks really liked olive oil. The team found that olive oil, olives, or some combination of the two were even more common in the amphorae than grape products such as wine.

Many of the amphorae also had traces of DNA from oregano, thyme, or mint, which may have been used to flavor and preserve foods. Most common of all was DNA from the juniper bush, "not something you typically think of in the ancient Greek diet," Foley says.

"Maybe a whole lot of juniper berries were added to food and drink in the ancient world."

Full story...

By Jannette Pippin - JD News

The raising of a cannon is planned as part of a fall dive expedition now under way at the Queen Anne’s Revenge shipwreck site off the Carteret County coast, but recent excitement has been over an artifact much, much smaller.

Now in its second week of the four-week dive, the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources archaeologists closed out the first week with an artifact recovered Friday of a small lid that appears to go to the set of seven bronze nesting weight cups recovered from the shipwreck in 2007.

The set of graduated, cup-shaped weights that fit inside of each other have already gone through the conservation process and are on display as part of the largest exhibit of artifacts from the shipwreck considered to be the flagship of the infamous pirate Blackbeard.

The exhibit is located at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort, which is the official repository for the QAR project.

David Moore, curator of nautical archaeology for the Maritime Museum, said the artifact was located about 20 feet from where the nesting weights were originally found.

“I would be surprised if it’s not (the lid),” he said.

Having the lid would help to complete the set, which was missing the lid and its smallest weight when it was found.

Moore said the smallest of finds make a big impact when it comes to piecing together the story of the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

“The small, seemingly insignificant artifacts all play a part,” Moore said. “All the artifacts give us a little bit of the story and enable us to put together this 3-D jigsaw puzzle.”

The nesting weight cups could have been used for measuring medicine or gold dust.

The recovery of the likely lid for the weight set came as East Carolina University students Laurel Seaborn and Rob Minford worked the dredge and sluice box used in separating tiny artifacts from sediment from the shipwreck site.

Students with ECU’s maritime studies program and a student from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation are participating in the dive expedition.

“Part of what we’re doing is education,” said Nathan Henry, assistant state archaeologist.

Also recovered this week was an artifact believed to be a shackle from the ship.

“It’s definitely a shackle, but we don’t know if it was used for rigging or possibly as part of the slave trade,” Henry said.

From Our Amazing Planet

Diving archaeologists are in the midst of a monthlong expedition to the sunken wreckage of the pirate Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, off the North Carolina coast, but the weather is not cooperating.

"Mother Nature is keeping us away from the site at least for most of this week," said mission leader Mark Wilde-Ramsing of the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology. "We'll do what we can; we still expect to raise a cannon."

The Queen Anne's Revenge sank off the coast of North Carolina in 1718 when Blackbeard (Edward Teach) ran it into the ground while entering an inlet.

Hurricanes have scoured the remains of the ship over the years, and the wreckage was in bad shape in 2006 before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built sand berms (small piles of sand) to buffer the wreckage from the gusty winds and ocean swells. Earlier this year, Hurricane Irene socked the North Carolina coast, not far from the wreckage, but the ship's remains seem to have held up well, Wilde-Ramsing told OurAmazingPlanet.

Using the North Carolina Marine Fisheries' Research Vessel Shell Point as the principal recovery vessel, the team began their work on Oct. 3. Once the bad weather passes, they plan to continue the excavation, documentation and recovery of artifacts. Unfortunately for the team, the current bad weather blew sand back into areas that the archaeologists dug out last week.

The team has already found what may be a shackle for a leg iron that held captives or enslaved Africans (the French ship was called Le Concorde when it was a slave trading ship).

The team also found a small brass lid that fits on top of nesting weights. Nesting weights were used as counterbalances to weigh medicine or other powder onboard the ship. Archaeologists have discovered a nearly complete set of the nesting weights, minus the lids, at the site.

From Yahoo News

The Department of National Defence is planning to look for ammunition on two Second World War shipwrecks in eastern Newfoundland.

The S.S. Saganaga and the S.S. P.L.M. 27 were torpedoed by German U-boats and sank in Conception Bay, off Bell Island, in 1942.

DND wants to check the wrecks for unexploded shells or other ammunitions.

Rick Stanley, who guides visiting divers in the area, said he’s already given federal officials some idea about what they’ll probably find.

"There are some bullets left on, 303 bullets, and some projectiles. Just the projectiles, not in the casings. I guess they want to clean those up," said Stanley, who runs the Ocean Quest Dive Centre in Conception Bay South.

Stanley said his motto is “take pictures and leave bubbles,” but he’s pleased the government is checking out any possible dangers.

"There are other divers who have been diving the wrecks and bits and pieces have gone missing and [federal officials] don't want anything to get into the wrong hands or anyone to get hurt," said Stanley.

DND is planning to survey the wrecks during the summer of 2012.

By Marcia Lane

Most successful privateer ship of Civil War featured in factual film

Peter Pepe has a visual reminder of time spent in St. Augustine — a skull and crossbones on his kayak.

It’s a reminder not of pirates, but of a Civil War privateer known as the Jefferson Davis that sank off the coast of St. Augustine in 1861. In 2009 Pepe and his production crew came to St. Augustine to film marine archaeologists from the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program exploring a wreck thought to be the Jeff Davis.

“Before this, I didn’t even know what a privateer was,” Pepe said.

Pepe, who heads Pepe Productions in Glens Falls, N.Y., recently released a documentary on the privateer, co-producing the 150-year-old story with Joe Zarzynski, a retired history teacher. Zarzynski first heard about the Jefferson Davis while vacationing in St. Augustine and volunteering at the Lighthouse.

The Jefferson Davis was the most successful privateer of the Civil War, said Chuck Meide, director of Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program

Over a dazzling seven-week period, the Davis and its crew captured nine northern merchant vessels off the New England coast. It was only when the ship headed into Confederate-held St. Augustine for water and food that things unraveled.

According to accounts of the time, St. Augustine residents awoke to see “a black painted brig with dark canvas sails beating towards the harbor entrance.” The Jeff Davis ran aground on the shallow bars of the inlet and the crew had to abandon her.

While Pepe’s group worked on the film for a couple of years, the release of the documentary ended up coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. The producers worried their film would get lost in all the other productions and books that were coming out.

“Since the dust has settled, the film is picking up a lot of interest,” Pepe said. It’s been selected for the Orlando Film Festival later this month. “That’s a huge honor for us.”

Full story...