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By Abigail Tucker - Smithsonian magazine

The vessel believed to have been Blackbeard’s flagship is currently occupied by octopuses, which turn a pale, disgruntled green when nautical archaeologists approach. Black sea bass nip at the excavators’ ears, and moray eels spill out of the mouths of cannons, many of which are still loaded.

But after nearly 300 years in the North Carolina shallows, the remains of what may be the Queen Anne’s Revenge are surfacing, plank by worm-eaten plank. The site, discovered in 1996, is 25 feet underwater, less than a mile and a half from shore.

But long weather delays during diving seasons and uncertain funding have slowed the excavation—this past fall’s expedition was the first since 2008—and it can take years to clean and analyze artifacts corroded beyond recognition. Still, with objects recovered from 50 percent of the site, archaeologists are increasingly confident that the wreck is the infamous frigate that terrorized the Caribbean and once blockaded Charleston, South Carolina, for a week before running aground in June 1718.

“We’re not going to find anything that says ‘Queen Anne’s Revenge’ or ‘Blackbeard Was Here,’” says Wendy Welsh, manager of the state-run Queen Anne’s Revenge Conservation Laboratory in Greenville, North Carolina. “You have to use all these little clues.”

Mike Daniel, the sea captain who first located the ship, introduced me to Welsh. Daniel is a successful treasure hunter who, in 1972, helped find Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas—a gold- and gem-laden Spanish galleon that sank off the Bahamas in 1656.

But it was Welsh who most evoked the persona of a pirate, wearing skull and crossbones earrings and a galleon-like charm around her neck. She stormed through the lab, peeling tarps off cannons with such ardor that Blackbeard might have welcomed her aboard.

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By Jane Ball - Romford Recorder

But could the answer lie in Romford ? One man thinks so.

Amateur historian Philip Boulton, from Lincolnshire, is a man on a mission to find a gold watch.

His great-great-great uncle Joseph Jewell and wife Mary were two of only 10 survivors of a sea disaster which saw The General Grant dashed off the coast of the Australian coast in May 1866 - with the loss of 73 lives.

The castaways spent 18 months awaiting rescue on the Auckland Islands and afterwards leader James Teer was presented with a gold watch in recognition of his services to the group.

Teer decided to send the memento to his sister Margaret Bishop in Islington, north London, with officer Richard Gould onboard a British vessel, the Tartar.

However, this ship too ran into trouble off the Hong Kong coast, where it was delivering cargo, and the valuables on board - including the gold watch - were snatched by Chinese pirates.


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From Past Horizons

In the shallow waters surrounding Lajas reef at the mouth of the Chagres river in Panama, a team of archaeologists has recovered cannons from the site where infamous privateer Captain Henry Morgan’s ships were wrecked in 1671 while carrying Morgan and his men to raid Panama City.

Six iron cannons recovered from the reef are now undergoing study and preservation treatment by Panamanian researchers in cooperation with a team that has been studying the Chagres river with the permission of Panama’s Instituto Nacional de Cultura (INAC).

Since 2008, an underwater archaeology team led by James Delgado, Frederick Hanselmann, and Dominique Rissolo has surveyed, mapped, and documented submerged sites, shipwrecks, and the 500-years of maritime history that rests along the banks of the Rio Chagres.

In a press conference in Panama City on February 24, 2011, the team announced the recovery of the cannons from a shallow reef damaged by treasure hunters, whose blasting and dredging had exposed the fragile iron cannons to possible damage and loss. This led to the decision to recover the cannons.

The cannons were measured and photographed in 2008 and studied by Dr. Ruth Brown, formerly with the Royal Armouries in the UK, an internationally renowned early cannon expert.

The size and shape of the cannons appear to be a close match with the characteristics of small iron cannon of the seventeenth century; a more definitive identification of the cannons will take place after they are treated and years of encrustation and corrosion are removed in the laboratory.

By Diane Maclean - Caledonian Mercury

At over 10,000 miles, Scotland has one of the longest coastlines in Europe.

This, coupled with the fierce gales that can spring up out of nowhere, has resulted in thousands of wrecks lying on our seabed. Little wonder, then, that we attract serious divers from around the world.

Some wrecks – ranging from early 16th century galleons to battleships from the first and second world wars – are, depending on their provenance, protected.

Currently, Historic Scotland oversees 15 shipwrecks under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act. For these, a licence is required if you want to dive – and you “must take only photographs, leave only bubbles”.

Other wrecks are designated war graves and fall under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.

Scotland has a huge range of dives – and, tantalisingly, also boasts the possible presence of two magnificent treasure ships. But more than the sand-strewn artefacts, these ships tell a story, and all too often a story that involves loss of life.

Scapa Flow
There are seven wrecks in Scapa Flow, Orkney. This stretch of water, with its shallow sandy bottom, is one of the best natural harbours in the world, and was used by the British Navy as its main base during both world wars. At the end of the first of these conflicts, the German fleet was taken here until a decision could be made about its future.

In June 1919, rather than let it fall into British hands, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, the German officer in command at Scapa Flow, gave the order to scuttle the fleet. Although more than 50 ships sank, most were salvaged, leaving only a handful submerged.

This is a popular site to dive and permits can be obtained from the Orkney Islands harbour authorities.

HMS Royal Oak
The Royal Oak, a Royal Navy battleship, first saw action during the Battle of Jutland in 1916. On 14 October 1939, while anchored at Scapa Flow, she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-47. Over 800 of the crew of 1,234 were killed, either immediately or as a result of their injuries.

The loss of HMS Royal Oak was a huge blow to morale for a country that had assumed it “ruled the waves”. The ship remains in Scapa Flow, lying upside-down in 100 feet of water. Each year, there is a ceremony to remember the dead. As it is a war grave, access is limited to divers of the British armed forces who have been given specific permission to visit.

17th century merchant vessels
There are a number of protected merchant vessels wrecked around our coast, including the Kennemerland, which ship belonged to the Dutch East India Company and was lost on Out Skerries, Shetland, in 1664 as it sailed to the East Indies. Its cargo included treasure, mercury, golf clubs, jewels and tobacco.

Also off Out Skerries lies the Wrangels Palais, originally a Swedish ship, captured by the Danish in 1677. It ran aground in fog 11 years later en route to Iceland, trying to outrun Turkish privateers.

From Time Line Auctions Limited

A gold stater struck by Brutus, one of Julius Caesar’s infamous assassins, together with two Spanish pieces-of-eight recovered from the world’s deepest known wreck site, are among more than 250 coin lots in Time Line Auction’s London sale scheduled for Friday, March 18th at the prestigious Swedenborg Hall, Bloomsbury, just around the corner from the British Museum.

Brutus issued the stater, which depicts him standing with two of his officers, when he was Roman consul in Thrace in the mid-1st century BC. The reverse shows an eagle holding a wreath in its clawed foot.

The silver pieces-of-eight came to light during a search in 1992 for the US space capsule, Liberty Bell 7, which sank in a sea test during which space pilot Gus Grissom almost died.

An unidentified anomaly at a depth of 16,300 feet turned out not to be the space capsule but a wooden sailing ship.

Exploring the wreckage with a robot arm, salvors discovered a chest containing more than 1300 pieces-of-eight and a small ornate box containing gold coins that had been wrapped in a newspaper dated August 6, 1809.

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By Lara Lutz - The Capital

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is pursuing a job not commonly associated with the scientific agency - finding places of historical and cultural value that deserve to be protected, particularly those that rest on the bottom of Chesapeake Bay.

The work is part of the new federal initiative to conserve the bay, and fits with NOAA's mission of protecting marine resources.

Since the bay and its rivers lie entirely in state waters, NOAA will bring resources to the effort, but ask for state leadership in identifying potential sites and the ways in which a protected area might be managed.

"Our hope is to not only work with Maryland and Virginia, but to have them take the lead, while we support the states in doing it," said Paul Ticco, who coordinates NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary program for the East Coast and Great Lakes.

Ticco said that the preservation of historic and cultural marine sites is underfunded in the bay region and NOAA resources can help protect them for future generations.

Preserving such sites could also promote public involvement with the bay restoration.

For example, the NOAA model for National Marine Sanctuaries, one of several classifications within the National Marine Protected Areas program, features an outreach program that weds history, science and stewardship into one package.

"A site in the bay would have a multiplier effect," Ticco said.

"Visitors might come to learn about a shipwreck, but they can also learn about the conservation of bay resources, pollution and what individuals can do to help."

No specific amount of federal funding is linked to the effort, but Ticco anticipates supporting a future site with NOAA resources for both outreach and science.

By Steve Peacock - This Is South Devon
 

An illegal dive on a protected South Devon wreck site has been highlighted in news of a new crackdown on heritage crime.

English Heritage has brought in a top cop to lead the fight against the growing number of heritage crimes ranging from vandal attacks on historic buildings to damaging illegal excavations by treasure hunters local for historic valuable.

Illegal diving on wreck and illegal metal detector expeditions on protected sites are part of what is believed to be a growing problem.

An English Heritage report revealed that the Salcombe Canon site, just off the coast between Prawle Point and the entrance to Salcombe Harbour, has 'suffered vandalism and damage by rogue divers and unauthorised fishing vessels'.

The site of the 17th Century shipwreck is protected by law.

The report added: "Swift action by the coastguard and the police resulted in the offenders being given a formal warning and they also put an open message of apology in a popular diving magazine."

The South West region has been chose as a pilot area for the crack down because of the large number of sensitive historic sites in the area.

Problems have included the theft of lead from historic roofs and 4x4 drivers using historic areas as race tracks.

Representatives from more than 40 organisations, ranging from the National Trust, the Church of England, Crimestoppers and Ministry of Defence to National Parks, the Woodland Trust and the Historic Houses Association have met to form the Alliance to Reduce Crime against Heritage.

Local history societies, amenity groups, neighbourhood watch and residents associations will be encouraged to raise awareness of the risk of criminal damage to historic sites and buildings in their area.

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By Kate O'Toole and Miranda Tetlow - ABC News

Silvano has been studying the wrecks since the early 90s, completing a Masters and a PhD on the subject.

He thinks these World War Two wrecks are just as important as the ancient rock art shelters we also boast in the Territory...

It's a lesson in underwater archaeology on The Guestroom, as we take you diving, surveying and into the intricacies of heritage listing in Northern Territory waters.


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