Scientists get look at Queen Anne's artifacts
By Josh Humphries
The Daily Reflector
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Scientists from throughout the world are in Greenville this week to get a first-hand look at efforts to preserve artifacts believed to have been aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge.
About 80 conservators and scientists from 15 countries and 10 U.S. states who preserve wet archaeological artifacts are participating in the Triennial Conference of the International Council of Museums, Conservation Committee, Wet Organic Archaeological Materials Group.
The group visited East Carolina University’s West Research Campus and the Queen Anne’s Revenge (QAR) lab on Wednesday evening as part of the four-day event.
N.C. Department of Cultural Resources Secretary Linda Carlisle spoke to the scientists at the QAR lab.
“We are doing great work here,” Carlisle said. “I think you can see that this is not just a Greenville, North Carolina, project but an international project.”
The QAR lab is the center for protecting and cleaning artifacts researchers have discovered in Beaufort inlet believed to have been aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the one-time flagship of the famous pirate, Blackbeard.
Carlisle and the researches viewed hundreds of artifacts removed from the ship including large cannons and tiny beads and particles of gunshots. The project continues to gather and prepare items from the shipwreck for display in museums.
“We hope you can come back and see these wonderful artifacts in exhibits that tell the story of our state,” Carlisle said. “That is what we are working toward.”
Carlisle said it is an honor for North Carolina to host the conference because it is on held once every three years.
The previous two conferences were held in Copenhagen and Amsterdam.
“This really helps put North Carolina on the map,” Carlisle said. “Now that they are here, they realize that this is an very important project.”
QAR Chief Conservator Sarah Watkins-Kenney said she was delighted when the conference committee chose the N.C. Department of Resources, ECU and Colonial Williamsburg to host the 2010 conference in Greenville.
“Not only will they see artifacts from the likely Queen Anne’s Revenge, Blackbeard’s flagship, but also artifacts in treatment in Colonial Williamsburg and from the Civil War Monitor at the Mariners Museum in Newport News,” she said. “They have come from all over the work to see what we are doing here and to share their own research and experiences.”
Contact Josh Humphries at
jhumphries@reflector.com or (252) 329-9565.
http://www.reflector.com/news/scientists-get-look-queen-annes-artifacts-36469