MOREHEAD CITY, North Carolina (1 Dec 2004) -- Researchers trying to recover artifacts from the wreckage of a vessel believed to be the flagship of the pirate Blackbeard have won grants worth $245,000 to pay for their work, state officials announced Tuesday. The Golden Leaf Foundation has awarded the Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project $145,000 to save fragile items or those that could be threatened because of storms and to conduct research in new areas. The state Legislature gave the project $100,000 to pay for conservation of the artifacts at an East Carolina University laboratory. The grants came just before a two-year grant from Save America's Treasures expires in December. The money will pay for preparation of a detailed plan for recovery and artifact handling in the field and in the conservation lab. | | "We anticipate starting an expedition for major recovery in early summer to further explore the site and recover tens of thousands of artifacts," said project director Mark Wilde-Ramsing. "After that, staff will begin intensive work in the lab cataloging, sorting, processing and or storing recovered materials." The shipwreck was discovered in 1997 and items recovered from it have been displayed at the N.C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort and been part of a traveling museum tour. The Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project is administered by the Office of Archives and History in the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. |
