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Photo Donnie Reid

By Thomas H. Maugh II - Seattle Times

Archaeologists have recovered six cannons from the ships of Welsh privateer Sir Henry Morgan, the first artifacts found in Panama to be linked to the man who remains a legend there, the team said Monday.

Morgan had sent three ships and a crew of 470 men to capture the Castillo de San Lorenzo el Real de Chagres, a fort that guarded the approach to the capital of Panama City. Morgan and his men were sailing up the Chagres River to join them when his flagship, the Satisfaction, and at least three other vessels crashed on Lajas Reef, sinking in shallow water.

Members of Morgan's force paddled upriver and walked overland to reach Panama City, which they successfully sacked. But their wrecked ships were abandoned and left to amateur archaeologists and looters.

"Every schoolkid learns about Morgan's activities, but we have never seen any of his materials," said archaeologist Tomas Mendizibal, a research associate at Patronato Panama Viejo, a government agency that is overseeing excavation of the original site of Panama City. "If these are indeed his cannons, it would be a first." Mendizibal was not involved in the discovery.

Morgan is generally thought of as a pirate, but he was commissioned as a privateer by the English crown to attack enemy vessels and protect the British colonies of Barbados and Jamaica because the royal navy was unable to do so. He became the scourge of the Spanish in the Caribbean and was eventually knighted and made governor of Jamaica.

A joint American-Panamanian team has been exploring the mouth of the Chagres River since 2008, documenting its rich history. Christopher Columbus found it in 1502 on his fourth voyage to the New World, and it became the gateway to Panama City, Spain's main port in the Pacific.

Following the decline of the Spanish empire in the late 18th century, the city became a backwater port and an entree for smuggling and illicit trade. With the California gold rush, the Chagres River again saw a flurry of activity, but the construction of the Panama railroad shifted transit traffic to the port of Colon and by 1855 the river was again a backwater.

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By Sam Satchell - This Is Sussex

An East Grinstead man has been cautioned for helping himself to historic shipwreck artefacts.

The 64-year-old man salvaged numerous pieces of galleon wood off the coast of Sussex, which he fashioned into items for sale including tables, mirrors and bookcases.

His identity has not been revealed by police but he is named as Keith on a website showcasing his merchandise.

Asked by the Courier & Observer if he knew the recovery was illegal, he replied "not at all".

The caution follows an investigation into two shipwrecks off the Sussex coastline conducted by Sussex Police in conjunction with English Heritage and the Receiver of Wreck who represents the government.

Among items listed for sale on the man's website are candle holders, for about £24 and lamp shade stands, for up to £245.

Receiver of Wreck Alison Kentuck said the legal owner of wreck material is always entitled to have their property back if, for example, it is found by divers or snorkelers.

She added: "On this occasion, alleged offences included damaging protected historic wrecks and removing material from them.

"This related particularly to the protected wrecks of the Anne, a 70-gun ship of the line that was run ashore in Rye Bay and burnt after the Battle of Beachy Head in 1690, and the Amsterdam, a Dutch VOC ship that was beached at Bulverhythe in 1749 after the crew mutinied."

Now that the artefacts have been recovered, the Receiver of Wreck begins a process to find the legal owner.

If the owner cannot be found within one year, the artefacts become the property of the crown or a grantee – a landowning beneficiary.

From Bernews

Author Peter Benchley – whose 1976 bestseller “The Deep” and the subsequent blockbuster movie adaptation were inspired by his friend’s maritime exploits – once said Teddy Tucker had brought Bermuda to the world and the world to Bermuda.

Mr. Tucker, now in his 80s, has been diving on shipwrecks locally and internationally since the late 1940s. In 1957, he and Mendel L. Peterson of the Smithsonian Institution, with other staff members from the Department of Armed Forces History, developed the grid system for surveying wreck sites.

For three years, Teddy Tucker taught marine archaeology with Mr. Peterson as a college accredited course for the University of Maryland.

In the past Mr. Tucker has owned, supplied and successfully operated a maritime museum in Hamilton and has acted as a consultant and an advisor of methods used in studying and identifying shipwrecks.

Mr. Tucker is a founding member of the Beebe Project in 1983. The Beebe Project is now worldwide, discovering and studying deep-sea animals using submersibles and specially designed cameras. Other founders include “National Geographic” photographer Emory Kristof , Dr. Eugenie Clark and Dr. Joseph MacInnis of Undersea Research, Canada. Mr. Tucker discovered the six-gill shark in Bermuda waters in the 1970s.

In 1983, Mr. Tucker worked with the French and in 1987 and 1989 with the Soviets. He and his family were guests of the former Soviet Union at a Marine Symposium in 1990. In 1990 the Soviet ship RV “Akademik Mystav Keldysh” came to Bermuda at Mr. Tucker’s suggestion to test the equipment before going to the “Titanic” wreck site to make the IMAX film “Titanica.”

In 1996, he worked with the National Geographic Society in the Marshall Islands, Pacific Ocean. In 1997, he worked with the National Geographic in New Zealand. Mr. Tucker and Mr. Steve Blasco, Geological Survey of Canada, were co-scientists on the Bermuda Sea Level Project with the Canadian Navy. The Bermuda Sea Level Project is an on going project.

Mr. Tucker has found more than one hundred shipwrecks around Bermuda including the 16th century treasure ship “San Pedro” containing the fabled gold and emerald Tucker Cross.

“Twice in five years I dived on the wreck, more out of curiosity than thoughts of gain,” he has said about his most famous discovery — the single most valuable piece of treasure ever recovered from the sea.

“One day in the summer of 1955, with nothing better to do, I went down for another look, within minutes I uncovered a small, five-sided piece of gold.

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Photo Kenneth Garrett

By John Wenzel  - The Denver Post

Barry Clifford remembers the yarns his Uncle Bill used to spin at a New England fish shack during his childhood, detailing the swashbuckling adventures and tragic loss of the Whydah — one of the world's most famous pirate ships, which sank spectacularly off the coast of Massachusetts in 1717.

"Every Cape Cod family had their own treasured version of it," said Clifford. "But was it folk story or was it real? And who was going to find it ?"

As it turns out, Clifford did.

Now one of the world's most renowned underwater archaeological explorers, he discovered the Whydah in 1984 after years of painstaking research, technological innovation, and trial and error.

The fruits of that discovery are on display

in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science's "Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah From Slave Ship to Pirate Ship."


The National Geographic-backed exhibit, which runs today through Aug. 21, offers a unique glimpse into a lifestyle and culture that continues to fascinate — and terrify — into the 21st century.

"Real Pirates" is more than an embalmed chunk of history or a gritty curiosity. The Whydah find is unprecedented in its richness, continuing to yield tens of thousands of priceless, often one-of-a-kind artifacts (gold and silver coins, weapons, surgical instruments, clothing) nearly three decades after its initial discovery — and nearly three centuries after it sank into the Atlantic off Cape Cod.

It's also the first fully authenticated pirate ship discovered in U.S. waters and, according to Clifford, the only real pirate treasure on display anywhere in the world.

"All of the shipwrecks you've heard about in the Caribbean are Spanish galleons," Clifford said. "They're like big Brinks trucks, going back to Europe with freshly minted coins that were being robbed from the indigenous peoples of the Americas."

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By Sheradyn Holderhead - Adelaide Now

Oceanographer David Gallo still can't believe he is leading a team of researchers to map the Titanic in its watery grave.

Dr Gallo, who was in Adelaide this week, thought the story about the discovery of the ill-fated liner in 1980 would "die down almost immediately" so he stayed away from it.

But last August, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution special projects director led a team on a 20-day expedition to the shipwreck. It was billed as the most scientific mission to the site.

"This past summer, I found myself as expedition leader on an expedition to Titanic with the goal for the first time of making a map, starting to treat it as an archaeological site," Dr Gallo said, speaking at the Australian International Documentary Conference.

"Everything up until that point . . . was pretty much designed in terms of the documentary world to capture the highlights of the bow, the bridge, one or two artefacts. It was always the same path. It was almost like a Disneyland ride - the bow, the bridge; no one had ever treated it as an archaeological site."

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Photo Donnie Reid

From CBC News

Archeologists have found new clues about the music early Klondike stampeders were listening to during the Yukon Gold Rush, thanks to recordings found aboard a 110-year-old shipwreck.

The three records and a gramophone were discovered last summer in the A.J. Goddard, a sternwheeler that sank in Lake Laberge, north of Whitehorse, in October 1901.

"It's the coolest find on the Goddard, absolutely," Lindsey Thomas, a Texas-based archeology graduate student who has been heading up research on the ship, told CBC News.

"To find a record player — it really gives insight to how they were operating throughout their daily lives, and it taught me the importance of music during the period."
Minstrel songs popular

Thomas said the three recordings, including Rendezvous Waltz and a rare 1896 minstrel recording of Ma Onliest One, were previously unknown to Gold Rush-era music experts.

"These are three new songs that we now know people were listening to during the Gold Rush, and they were playing it," she said. "Ma Onliest One was the disc that was attached to the gramophone."

Thomas said minstrel songs were popular at the time because they were "easy for the miners and for the people up there to perform."

"It became popular in the 1820s, but they were able to put on shows and pass the time amongst themselves as they were stuck in cabins over the winter," she said.

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By Danny Valentine - Tampa Bay

The excavation of a 1,000-year-old canoe began at dawn Tuesday with a long trek through shallow water.

Rain poured. Smelly muck filled with sharp shells covered everything. Flesh-hungry sand gnats did what they do best.

And this was the fun part.

After years of anticipation, paperwork, fundraising and waiting for the tides to ebb just right, a small team of experts were finally ready to pull the prehistoric vessel from its grave at the Weedon Island Preserve.

The digging began early.

Oyster shells and goop were piled up one delicate trowel scoop at a time, revealing the outline of a long, narrow craft. At 40 feet, the vessel would have been large enough to travel across Tampa Bay.

The pine dugout canoe was less than a foot in the ground, but it was snug. Mud and other organic matter kept it from moving. Diggers were careful not to move too fast and rip it apart.

The excavators carefully scooped beneath the canoe, freeing it from the ground.

Once the first 10-foot section was clear, the saw came out. The plan called for slicing the vessel into four sections and reassembling them later, making it less likely to fracture.

Straps were wrapped around the section, and excavators lined up on either side.

"One, two, three," called out Robert Austin, the vice president and principal investigator for Southeastern Archaeological Research. "Perfect."

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From Bahamas Press

Bahamas Press is following at this hour the arrest of an American who resides in Freeport. We can tell you guest was arrested in the Walker’s Cay area in the Northern Bahamas a few days ago.

Alex Gardiner we are told by investigators was taken into custody for treasure hunting.

Early investigations tell us the accused had come across sunken treasures discovered at the bottom of the sea in a Spanish galleon in the area.

Reports allege the American began salvaging and looting the wreck; shipping the items into foreign territory.

We are told there was no formal notice made to the Government of the Bahamas for the excavations nor was there any license granted for such.

No communication of his arrest or the discovery of the vessels has been announced by the Ingraham government, but meetings with the King of Spain we believe could soon find new happiness around the table.

The vessels we are told by historians when sunk was been laden with gold and artifacts with a value into the Billions if traded on the world market today.