An infamous pirate has once again staked claim to land along the Outer Banks.

A traveling exhibit on Blackbeard and his flagship Queen Anne’s Revenge has been installed at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras village. Staffers with North Carolina Maritime Museum, Beaufort, installed the traveling exhibit.

The display, which includes a collection of artifacts recovered from the shipwreck site, will remain at the museum through at least the end of August. It is then scheduled to move to the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh.

“The exhibit is a story that covers the discovery and archaeology of the wreck of the Queen Anne’s Revenge,” the museum system’s exhibits curator Mike Carraway explained. “It also covers the pirates themselves in relationship to Queen Anne’s Revenge and Blackbeard.”

The approximately 40 artifacts in the traveling exhibit have been recovered from the underwater home of the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Intersal, Inc., discovered the shipwreck in November 1996, using information provided to operations director Mike Daniel by company president Phil Masters.

This is the second iteration of the traveling exhibit and one that adds more items to the display.

“And we changed the way the artifact cases are set up,” Caraway said.

That way, he explained, they can tell the story through artifacts that reflect the panels on such topics as the legend of Blackbeard, piracy at that time, common weaponry, treasure and the discovery of Queen Anne’s Revenge. Artifacts include lead shot and cannonballs; a pipe bowl; ceramics; fragments of gold; and more. A touch screen provides information on Blackbeard’s crew; a model of Queen Anne’s Revenge that Carraway describes as more historically accurate than even the one in the permanent exhibit on display at the museum in Beaufort; and a map of Queen Anne’s Revenge’s underwater home are also included.

It was hard for Carraway to single out a favorite artifact or element of the display.

“It’s all really cool,” Carraway said, “or we wouldn’t do it.”

The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is located at 59200 Museum Drive in Hatteras. It is currently operating on its summer schedule: open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, call 252-986-0720 or visit graveyardoftheatlantic.com.

The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras is named in honor of thousands of ships that sank off North Carolina’s coast. The museum is dedicated to the preservation and presentation of the state’s coastal culture and maritime history. The vessels are the centerpiece of relationships to piracy, war, (Revolutionary, Civil and World Wars I and II), lifesaving, commerce and coastal living. The museum is filled with related artifacts, which include remnants of the earliest known shipwreck found in North Carolina waters, dating to 1650.

The North Carolina Maritime Museum system is comprised of the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras, the North Carolina Maritime Museum at Beaufort and the North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport. All three museums are part of the Division of State History Museums in the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

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