The first shipwrecks linked to the golden age of piracy in the Bahamas have been discovered in Nassau harbour by an international team co-directed by British marine archaeologist Dr Sean Kingsley. The wrecks include a charred wooden hull, swivel guns, musket balls, and other artefacts dating from the 1690s to 1720s, when pirates like Blackbeard and Calico Jack Rackham used New Providence as a hideout.
Expedition co-director Dr Michael Pateman said the charred hull shows signs of pirate mischief, as burning ships to the waterline was a tactic to destroy evidence of crimes. The hull was still weighed down by stone ballast, and the team found a swivel gun described as a 'calling card of pirate attacks', along with an iron cannon, 25 lead musket balls, and a grinding stone for sharpening swords.
Dr Kingsley expressed shock at the survival of the wooden hull, calling it a once-in-a-lifetime moment. The discoveries were made after the first official permission to dive in the closed zone of Nassau harbour, despite heavy dredging of the seabed. The team also found rigging, glass bottles, bricks from a galley, and 143 clay tobacco pipes decorated with unicorns, horses, crowns, and the royal crest of England.
The expedition, known as the New Providence Pirates Expedition, included archaeologists and film-makers. Despite dangerous currents and sharks, the team succeeded in finding six wrecks, three from the golden age of piracy. Dr Kingsley noted that while a handful of pirate wrecks have been found elsewhere, none had previously been discovered in Nassau, the home port of the pirates of the Caribbean.
