It is not what you find, it is what you find out...

We went to the NG museum this evening for a talk by Barry Clifford. Clifford talked about how, since he was a child, he heard from his uncle Bill stories about pirates and lost treasure. Like every child he wanted to find this lost treasure. Unlike all other children, he actually did! 

Clifford talks about his discovery of the wreck of Whydah, a ship taken over by the pirate, Sam Bellamy and his motley crew.The treasure found in this wreck is the only official pirate treasure ever recovered, to date.

To find this wreck, he looked at old documents and eventually found a map that showed where the Whydah had sunk. Several documents and much preparation later he set off with John F. Kennedy jr to find Whydah. And, they did. The local historian at the time didn't believe them, despite the artifacts they retrieved until they found a bell. The bell, after deconcreting, revealed the inscription "The Whydah Gally 1716".

The First Map Clifford Found Depicting Where The Whydah Wrecked

Whydah Bell

Whydah Bell - The Whydah Gally 171

Clifford also talked about other ship wrecks they have found around Madagascar and the evidence he found about pirates Blackbeard and Levasseur. Levasseur split from his crew and went to Madagascar to become a pirate there. Allegedly, when he was finally caught and before he was going to be hanged, he threw a piece of paper into the crowd and said, "Find my treasure, ye who may understand it!"

Levasseur Cryptogram

Most of the artifacts found from the Whydah are 10 to 20 feet below below the sand bed. But, recently they have found artifacts upto 30 feet below the sand bed, very close to the glacial silt. They have retrieved over 200,000 artifacts from the site of the Whydah and it involves a tedious process of documenting exactly where each item was found and making accurate drawings of all the artifacts. Amongst these artifacts, canons, guns, shoes, clothing, and treasures were found. The concretion around the artifacts have preserved a lot of items, including a size 6 shoe and a stocking that went with it. This would have been small for a pirate/adult man. As it turns out, there was a rebellious little 11 year old boy, John King, who defied his mother and came on the ship to be a pirate. They even found a little gold ring with the inscription "TEYE BA" on it. This happens to be a very common Senegalese name. The ring is small and hard to imagine it would have fit an adult. Perhaps a friend John King made? 

Size 6 Shoe, Stocking and Bone - John King

Gold Ring with 'TEYE BA' Inscription

Another cool thing they found was artifacts that had free mason symbols. These artifacts are now the oldest document free mason symbols ever found. 

Oldest Masonic Symbols Found

In finding these artifacts, they also noticed gold bars broken up. It showed that aboard the pirate ship, everything was divided equally...the beginning of democracy. It is known that 1/3rd of the crew was black. In a time when these ships were being used to transport slaves before being captured by pirates, there was equality on the pirate ship irrespective of race. 

In the end, Clifford left us with these words: "It is not what you find, it is what you find out."

The Whydah Gally

Disclaimer: All photos were found using google.