Divers to display anchor from NC shipwreck

BEAUFORT, N.C. — The public is getting a chance to see part of the shipwreck that’s thought to be from Blackbeard’s flaghip, the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

A small anchor, or grapnel, that divers recovered Wednesday in the Atlantic Ocean off the North Carolina coast will be displayed Thursday morning at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort.

The director of the shipwreck project, Mark Wilde-Ramsing, says archaeologists refer to artifacts in their natural state – before they’re cleaned up for museum viewing – as “fresh catch.”

Divers planned to raise the 160-pound grapnel next year, but decide to bring it up immediately because it had become unstable and was threatened by storms.

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