Navigational Instruments & French Apothecary Weights found in Queen Anne's Revenge

Since I am planning to attend the new Pirates! exhibition at the Chicago Field Museum when I am in the Chicago area attending the Historical Novel Society conference in June, this article about the latest discoveries found in a wreck thought to be Blackbeard's "Queen Anne's Revenge" caught my eye.

A brass navigational instrument known as a chart divider is among artifacts recently recovered from a shipwreck thought to be the Queen Anne's Revenge, the ship of the infamous 18th-century pirate Blackbeard, archaeologists said in March 2009.

Underwater archaeologists from the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources have been excavating the wreck—which lies 22 feet (7 meters) underwater a few miles off Beaufort, North Carolina—since 1997.
- More: National Geographic Society News

Archaeologists have also discovered some apothecary weights embossed with distinctive French fleur-de-lis. Blackbeard captured a French ship originally named Le Concorde and renamed her the Queen Anne's Revenge. So, the discovery of French-marked weights lends more authority to claims the wreck is, in fact, the fabled pirate ship.

—Photographs courtesy Wendy M. Welsh, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!