Pirates!

Pirates!

Sorry about that, folks, but we are talking about Blackbeard's own pirate vessel, Queen Anne's Revenge! This is cool -- a three-hundred year old pirate ship.

A shipwreck off the North Carolina coast believed to be that of notorious pirate Blackbeard could be fully excavated in three years, officials working on the project said.

"That's really our target," Steve Claggett, the state archaeologist, said Friday while discussing 10 years of research that has been conducted since the shipwreck was found just off Atlantic Beach.

The ship ran aground in 1718, and some researchers believe it was a French slave ship Blackbeard captured in 1717 and renamed Queen Anne's Revenge.

Several officials said historical data and coral-covered artifacts recovered from the site — including 25 cannons, which experts said was an uncommonly large number to find on a ship in the region in the early 18th century — remove any doubt the wreckage belonged to Blackbeard.

Three university professors, including two from East Carolina University, have challenged the findings. But officials working on the excavation said Friday that the more they find, the stronger their case becomes.

"Historians have really looked at it thoroughly and don't feel that there's any possibility anything else is in there that was not recorded," said Mark Wilde-Ramsing, director of the Queen Anne's Revenge Project. "And the artifacts continue to support it."

I cannot wait to see if the artifacts recovered continue to provide support for this being the famous pirate vessel sailed by the best-known pirate of the eighteenth century.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, Is It Just Me?, The Virtuous Republic, Stuck On Stupid, The Amboy Times, Leaning Straight Up, Rightlinx, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, The Uncooperative Blogger ®, stikNstein... has no mercy, Pirate's Cove, The Right Nation, Overtaken by Events, The Pink Flamingo, Renaissance Blogger, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, Right Pundits, Random Dreamer, A Blog For All, 123beta, Adam's Blog, basil's blog, Cao's Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Phastidio.net, Conservative Cat, Jo's Cafe, Conservative Thoughts, Faultline USA, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, and Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.