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PORT ROYAL - Jamaica

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Bianca
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« Reply #15 on: November 18, 2007, 01:21:36 pm »









                                                "Travelin' to Pirate Country"


                                                      A Visit to Jamaica ..


                                                            Port Royal




The drive out onto the Palisadoes (the long, flat spit of land leading out to Port Royal from Kingston) was very scenic. Becoming very narrow at spots, it was easy to see the harbour waters on the right, and the ocean waves not far away on the left. I could imagine how this fragile link to the mainland, only opened in 1936, could easily be cut by storms. Tall skinny cactus plants (like scaled-down saguaros) were growing amongst the sand dunes and mingling with the mangrove bushes. I later learned that the area supports a rather rare, precarious ecosystem.



Cactus and mangroves



Our stop, the Morgan’s Harbour Hotel, was at the end of the line.  We went in, and beyond the lobby, it opened up to a sandy beach, an enclosed salt water bathing lagoon, an open-air dockside restaurant, and a small marina. A building with a large "1692" on it, and a sign that read "Buccaneer Scuba Club" caught our attention. As the hotel overlooks the sunken portion of Port Royal, I thought perhaps this was a joke. I later learned they really do have a scuba club there, for the sunken city, along with various shipwrecks, is of great interest to scuba divers. We also learned that this building was the Pitch House, an 18th c. storehouse (though some told us it was a survivor of the 1692 earthquake). Now it hosts dances within its walls.

« Last Edit: November 18, 2007, 01:36:14 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #16 on: November 18, 2007, 01:39:14 pm »

                                      








We walked down the main road, actually a narrow lane.  Then came a grassy park (the old Muster Grounds) with

one of those historical marker signs, telling briefly about the history of Port Royal:



Once called "the richest and wickedest city in the world", Port Royal was also the virtual capital of Jamaica.

To it came men of all races, treasures of silks, doubloons and gold from spanish ships, looted on the high seas by the notorious "Brethren of the Coast" as the pirates were called.

From here sailed the fleets of Henry Morgan, later lieutenant-governor of Jamaica, for the sacking of Camaguey, Maracaibo, and Panama, and died here, despite the ministrations of his Jamaican folk-doctor.

Admirals lord Nelson and Benbow, the chilling Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, were among its inhabitants.

The town flourished for 32 years until at 20 minutes to noon, June 7, 1692.

It was partially buried in the sea by an earthquake.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2007, 01:41:24 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #17 on: November 18, 2007, 01:42:55 pm »

                               






                                                               Church Street




Walking further, past some small homes, and a small rosy-coloured Methodist church (just barely seen on the right side), we spotted a moderate-sized gray-colored church beyond on the other side of the street (far left).




                                 


                                                               St. Peter's Church


This was St. Peter’s, an Anglican church built in 1725, to replace Christ’s Church which was lost in the 1692 earthquake.




                                         


                                                          The Communion Silver



It was said the communion silver of St. Peter's Church had been willed to the church by Sir Henry Morgan from his Spanish plunder.  This is it.  I actually drank communion wine from the goblet on the right.


http://www.noquartergiven.net/jamaica.htm
« Last Edit: November 18, 2007, 02:23:06 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #18 on: November 18, 2007, 02:25:49 pm »

                            









The dotted line denotes the margins of old Port Royal,
that "wicked city" that now lies partially submerged.
All images on this page courtesy of

Donny L. Hamilton,
Institute of Nautical Archeology.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2007, 02:30:08 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #19 on: November 18, 2007, 02:32:45 pm »








Sin city sunk under sea





One of the advantages of marine or nautical archeology is that, in many instances, catastrophic events send a ship or its cargo to the bottom, freezing a moment in time.

As one archeologist phrases it, in shipwrecks -- and mammoth mud slides and volcanoes -- "people haven't had time to clean up." That may be bad luck for the victims. But it's a bona fide bonanza for archeologists.

One such catastrophe that has helped nautical archeologists was the earthquake that destroyed part of the city of Port Royal, Jamaica. Once known as the "Wickedest City on Earth" for its sheer concentration of pirates, prostitutes and rum, Port Royal is now famous for another reason:

"It is the only sunken city in the New World," according to Donny L. Hamilton of Texas A&M University's Institute of Nautical Archeology.

 





 
Port Royal began its watery journey to the Academy Awards of nautical archeology on the morning of June 7, 1692, when, in a matter of minutes, a massive earthquake sent nearly 33 acres of the city -- buildings, streets, houses, and their contents and occupants -- careening into Kingston Harbor. Today, that underwater metropolis encompasses roughly 13 acres, at depths ranging from a few inches to 40 feet.

For nearly ten years, Hamilton and his colleagues, many of them students, explored the buildings of this sunken colonial city, cataloging the artifacts and structures, encountering the remains of the human victims, and sorting through the detritus of everyday life.

"To me, it's like walking through your home town," explains Hamilton. "I probably know more about these people who lived in 1692 in Port Royal than I do about my next door neighbor."
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« Reply #20 on: November 18, 2007, 02:34:35 pm »






Excavating a sunken city: Brick
paving and building walls.







                                               Putting a face on disaster





Indeed, Hamilton has had the good fortune to get to know many of the colonial residents of Port Royal because the English, even 300 years ago, were prodigious bureaucrats, compiling mountains of documents -- wills, lawsuits, deeds, commissions, commercial records -- that bring to life the occupants of the now-submerged metropolis of Port Royal.

Take some pewter  plates Hamilton's team found in two buildings. The plates bore an unknown "touch mark" that was an invaluable clue to the identity of their maker, a fellow by the name of Simon Benning. Benning's will and other documents, subsequently unearthed in England, provided an intriguing record of his family. It is highly unusual, to say the least, to have a written portrait of a craftsman whose work was found in an archeological excavation.

Port Royal, says Hamilton, belongs to an elite group of archeological sites that includes Pompeii and Herculaneum, Roman towns frozen in time by the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. These sites are undisturbed; unlike most terrestrial sites, the archeologist is not bothered by debris from intervening human occupations. In submerged Port Royal, furniture, tableware, shoes, cooking implements, tools and anything else that might have been tucked away in a home or business remain largely in place.

The earthquake, Hamilton told The Why Files, "sealed in everything that was going on at 11:43 a.m. on June 7, 1692." The precise time is known because a pocket watch, its hands frozen at the instant of disaster, long before waterproof watches, was recovered during some of the first excavations of the site in 1960 by Edwin Link. The pinpointing in time of the disaster, says Hamilton, was a first for archeology.

"We are getting a glimpse of everyday life at a given point in time," Hamilton says, noting that while pieces of eight and royal treasure grab the public spotlight, what truly interests scholars is how the average citizenry lived, worked and played. A site like Port Royal is where the archeologist really "finds out about the ins and outs of everyday life."

Even so, some catastrophic sites have the feel of kings.


http://whyfiles.org/036pirates/lost_city.html
« Last Edit: November 18, 2007, 02:42:28 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

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