Whyday Cannon Finds

[MadMike]

Don't know if this has been posted before, but here's an interesting notation from the Whydah website-

"2005 was a successful year for us on the wreck site--and 2006 promises to be even more spectacular!

Toward the end of the dive season, Barry Clifford and our dive team found a new area of the site with fifteen more cannon--bringing our total located so far to over fifty!

The new artifact concentration is close to Data Reference Point A, but is covered with a 30 foot blanket of sand that could not be previously penetrated...

...since since our former recovery vessel--Vast Explorer II--was only capable of excavating through 22 feet of sand.

Cyprian Southack, the salvor sent by Governor Shute in April 1717 to recover the riches of the pirate ship, predicted at the end of his unsuccesful mission that "the riches with the guns will be buried in the sand".

These are clearly the cannon of which he wrote. They had been stored in the very bottom of the ship's hold, we found them lined up, cascabel to cascabel, like soldiers standing at attention, wheras the deck-mounted guns we have found in previous seasons were far more scattered.

According to Peter Hoof, one of the captured pirates, the money found in the Whydah when Bellamy captured her "was counted over, in the cabin, and put up in bags, fifty pounds [weight] to every man's share, there being 180 men on board...Their money was kept in chests between decks."

When the Whydah rolled over and capsized, the cannon stored below crashed down through the decks, pinning countless artifacts underneath them. Below the lined-up cannon in the sand, we observed rigging, timbers, barrels, lead rolls and what appears to be a large iron chest.

Before pulling off the site for the season--just ahead of a threatening hurricane--we recovered gold dust, coins, and two herefore elusive silver "biscuits". These are extremely rare ingots, which are about the diameter and height of a large biscuit. According to one historical source there were "many hundreds" of such round silver and gold ingots aboard the Whydah.

Our fieldwork in the coming season therefore promises to be incredibly exciting! Given that we have found approximately 15,000 coins within a hundred feet of this area in past years, we may finally be on the brink of the long-sought "mother lode" of the Whydah."

http://whydah.com/index.php?option=com_fro...ntpage&Itemid=1

Yours, &c.

Mike

Oops, that should be "Whydah"