Pictures: Slave Shackle, More Found On Blackbeard's Ship

Shackled
Photograph courtesy Mathew Waehner, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
This 18th-century iron shackle was recently recovered from the wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge, which belonged to the infamous Caribbean pirate Blackbeard.
The ship was discovered by the Florida-based exploration company Intersal, Inc., just off of Beaufort (map), North Carolina, in 1996, though it wasn't confirmed as Blackbeard's until 2011. For more than a decade a team from the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources has been recovering artifacts from the shipwreck and painstakingly restoring them at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.
Such shackles were used to imprison people, such as slaves en route to the New World, prisoners being held for ransom, or unruly sailors being punished for misdeeds. The shackle was wrapped in rope to prevent chaffing on the wrists and ankles of the imprisoned person.
This instrument is likely from Queen Anne's Revenge's pre-piracy days, when she was a French slave ship called La Concorde.
Blackbeard captured La Concorde in 1717, renamed her, and used her to terrorize seas from the Caribbean to the coast of colonial America.
(Related: exclusive pictures of Blackbeard pirate relics and gold.)
—Willie Drye
Published July 12, 2013
Pirate of the Caribbean
Illustration from SuperStock/Getty Images
After a brief but lucrative career as a pirate, Blackbeard died in a fierce battle with the British Navy off the coast of North Carolina in 1718. That battle is depicted in this painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.
Blackbeard—whose real name may have been Edward Teach or Edward Thatch—served as a sailor in the War of Spanish Succession from 1701 to 1714. After the war, he joined the crew of pirate Benjamin Hornigold. Eventually, he commanded a fleet of several pirate ships that included the Queen Anne's Revenge.
Blackbeard was as skilled at marketing his image as he was at snatching loot from terrified shippers. After he'd grown the long beard that gave him his memorable name, he sometimes braided it and decorated it with ribbons. Before attacking a ship, he stuck lighted fuses into his hat to add to his terrifying appearance. (Also see "Grim Life Cursed Real Pirates of Caribbean.")
Despite his demonic appearance and fearsome reputation, historians don't think that Blackbeard made a habit of killing people.
Published July 12, 2013
Swashbuckler
Photograph courtesy Mathew Waehner, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
A conservator at East Carolina University holds a sword handle recovered from the Queen Anne's Revenge and announced in 2011.
The unusual gilded handle contains both organic material—deer antler—and metal. The antler was preserved during the handle's nearly 300-year stay on the bottom of the ocean because it was safely buried in sand and silt in an oxygen-free environment where it didn't deteriorate.
The metal butt of the handle is decorated with irises—also known as fleurs-des-lis—which are the royal emblem of France.
Queen Anne's Revenge was a French vessel used for slave trading before being stolen by Blackbeard.
Published July 12, 2013
Bottle and Cork
Photograph courtesy Mathew Waehner, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
This bottle fragment and cork was recovered from the Queen Anne's Revenge shipwreck—among the thousands of artifacts, large and small, that have been found by archaeologists.
Perhaps Blackbeard's crew didn't have a corkscrew to remove this cork from a wine bottle, and so opened it by breaking off the bottle's neck.
Or maybe the bottle was broken after the ship ran aground near Beaufort, North Carolina, in the summer of 1718. (Play a Blackbeard interactive game.)
Published July 12, 2013
Lead Pellet
Photograph courtesy Mathew Waehner, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
Conservator Kimberly Kenyon points to a lead pellet that would have been fired from an early 18th-century musket. Kenyon found the pellet recently when she sifted sand and debris from the ocean floor through fine-mesh screens looking for such tiny artifacts from the wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge.
Experts also have found gold dust by examining sand under a microscope. The gold was discovered among lead pellets like the one above, perhaps suggesting that a French sailor hastily dumped the gold dust into a barrel of lead shot to hide it from the pirates capturing La Concorde, which would become Queen Anne's Revenge.
Published July 12, 2013
Ammunition
Photograph courtesy Mathew Waehner, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
Blackbeard's pirates fired lead shot such as these recently found in the wreck of Queen Anne's Revenge—during battles at sea.
The larger chunks in the bowl are lead pellets that have not been removed from the concretions that formed around them during the nearly three centuries that they rested on the seafloor. (Also see "'Blackbeard's Ship' Wreck to Get Protection From Currents, Hurricanes.")
Published July 12, 2013
Pinhead
Photograph courtesy Mathew Waehner, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
This tiny pin, only a couple of inches long and likely used to construct or repair clothing, is one of the artifacts recently recovered from the wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge.
Archaeologists have recovered items as small as this pin as well as huge artifacts weighing many tons, such as cannons and anchors. (See "'Blackbeard's Ship' Yields New Clues to Pirate Mystery.")
Published July 12, 2013
Anchor's Away
Photograph courtesy Bartosz Dajnowski, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
Bartosz Dajnowski sprays water on an anchor to keep it wet while a conservation tank is filled at East Carolina University in 2011.
The anchor, which weighs several tons, was recovered from Blackbeard's ship Queen Anne's Revenge, which ran aground off Beaufort, North Carolina, in 1718.
The anchor and other artifacts are being treated for long-term preservation, a process that can take years to complete. If the anchor was not submerged, it would dry out and quickly deteriorate and crumble.
When the time comes, conservators will use a chemical bath to remove the concretions that formed around the anchor during the nearly three centuries it lay on the ocean floor. Then they will begin a process to remove salt from the artifact.
Published July 12, 2013
Civilized Pirates
Photograph courtesy Mathew Waehner, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
Archaeologists excavating the wreck of Blackbeard's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, got a glimpse of how pirates dined in the early 18th century when they recently recovered these pewter plates and a spoon.
The three smaller plates—including the one that has been bent (top right)—were used for dining. The larger plate in the upper left corner of the photo, which is broken into several pieces, was used for serving.
Conservators were able to identify marks put on the plates by the artisans who made them, and determined that the flatware was manufactured in Europe.
The small plastic bags contain unidentified animal bones found in the wreckage.
Published July 12, 2013
Deep Clean
Photograph courtesy Mathew Waehner, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
Conservator Terry Williams uses an air-powered tool known as an airscribe to carefully clean a bar shot—a type of ammunition—recently recovered from the wreck of Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge.
Williams was working on the artifact at a conservation lab at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, where artifacts from the Queen Anne's Revenge are undergoing a lengthy conservation treatment.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, bar shot was fired from cannons and used against sailing ships. After a bar shot left a cannon's muzzle, it would whirl toward its target like an airborne saw. It could take down ships' masts and tear huge holes in sails, rendering opponents helpless.
Published July 12, 2013
See Next: Blackbeard's Ship Yields Ornamental Sword
Photograph courtesy Wendy M. Welsh, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
Published July 12, 2013