The Archives

The ArchivesSourcesMuseum Objects and Material Culture

Museum Objects and Material Culture

The dispersed, non-textual evidence cluster of surviving three-dimensional objects associated with golden-age piracy, comprising the excavated shipwreck assemblages of the Whydah Gally and North Carolina site 31CR314, a small number of commemorative and judicial objects in British and North American museums, and a much larger penumbra of items whose pirate attribution rests on assertion alone.

From1690To1800Also writtenWhydah Gally assemblage; Queen Anne's Revenge / La Concorde artefact assemblage; North Carolina shipwreck site 31CR314; Captain Ogle's cup, National Maritime Museum reference T4426; London Museum gibbet cage, object ID 53.14; Pirate material culture

This entry covers a class of evidence rather than a record series: surviving three-dimensional things associated with piracy between roughly 1690 and 1725, with later commemorative and judicial objects filed beside them. It divides into two populations never to be blended: artefacts raised under state permit from two North American shipwrecks, and museum objects whose link to piracy is commemorative, judicial or traditional. Around both sits a penumbra of items attributed by later owners alone.1

The two excavated assemblages

The Whydah Gally, Samuel Bellamy's flagship, was driven ashore off Wellfleet on 26 April 1717 and located in 1984 by Barry Clifford. A bronze ship's bell recovered in 1985, reported as inscribed THE WHYDAH GALLY 1716, carries the site's identification. Some 200,000 pieces have been raised since, including nearly 400 pieces of Akan goldwork and some 200 brass manillas of the kind used as currency in the Guinea trade; those counts come from the custodian and are probable. A femur tested in 2018 against a Bellamy descendant indicated a man of eastern Mediterranean ancestry; six individuals were reported from concretions in 2021.2

The second is North Carolina site 31CR314, located near Beaufort Inlet on 21 November 1996 by Intersal, Inc. under state permit. As of 2015 the project reported 24 cannon raised and over 400,000 artefacts. The wreck belongs to the State of North Carolina; the collection stayed whole partly through a 1998 agreement under which Intersal forewent coins and precious metals. Its identification as Queen Anne's Revenge, grounded in 1718, rests on cumulative circumstantial evidence and has been contested in print; the Archive carries it as the excavators' argued conclusion.3

Objects in museum custody

The best-known British object is a coconut cup in a silver mount at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, associated with Captain Chaloner Ogle and his defeat of Bartholomew Roberts at Cape Lopez on 10 February 1722. Its reference T4426 is inferred from image file names on the museum's feature; the collections search returns no record. Of the supposition that the mount was made from Roberts's plundered silver, the museum writes, "But we cannot be absolutely certain of any of this." A wrought iron gibbet cage at the London Museum, object ID 53.14, dated 1750 to 1800, documents the practice of hanging bodies in irons near Execution Dock and belongs to no named pirate.4

What the objects can test

A pewter urethral syringe from 31CR314 carries a plunger mark read as Paris of 1701 or 1708, attributed to Laurent Chatelain, with trace mercury in the residue consistent with treatment of venereal infection, a material fact aboard the ship the excavators identify as Blackbeard's flagship. Skowronek, Clifford and DeCorse, in npj Heritage Science, 2026, analysed 27 of 70 pieces of Whydah gold at 73.5 to 96.7 weight per cent gold; they state that the patterns do not support claims of systematic heavy adulteration of Akan gold, and equally that their methods cannot conclusively identify intentional additions of silver or copper. Its co-author Brandon Clifford is affiliated to the custodian museum and facilitated access.5

Its limits as evidence

Outside the two excavated wrecks there is a near-total absence of authenticated personal artefacts of identified golden-age pirates. Royal Museums Greenwich states that very few flags survive from the golden age, and that most of what is known about their design comes from eyewitness accounts, newspapers or books. No authenticated flag of the period was identified here, the limit of the search rather than a proved negative.6

Three further cautions stand. The cluster over-represents the imperishable and the submerged, overweighting weaponry and specie against clothing, food and writing. The archaeological population is two vessels, both lost within fourteen months, both former slave ships, which will not carry a generalisation to the Indian Ocean or the 1690s. Promotional pressure reaches the cluster's own best evidence: a bar publicised in 2015 as silver from Kidd's Adventure Galley was examined by a UNESCO advisory mission led by Michel L'Hour and reported as about 95 per cent lead with no silver; that recovery was Clifford's.

How the Archive uses it

Weigh provenance at cataloguing, separating excavated context from asserted association. Never let an object authenticate a story it cannot reach: the Ogle cup evidences commemoration and nothing about Roberts's silver. Treat announcements as announcements; let the word treasure do no evidential work. One obligation is ethical: the Whydah remains are those of drowned people, and its Akan gold was looted from the trade in enslaved Africans. The excavation literature sits with the modern archaeological reports.

What this source cannot yet give is item-level documentation for its most quoted material: no public catalogue with accession numbers for the Whydah collection was retrievable, so the bell's lettering rests on secondary reporting that varies between GALLY and GALLEY; the Ogle cup has no public catalogue record at Greenwich; and no accession number was published for the syringe.

What the evidence does not settle

Whydah bell inscription

  • The Whydah bell's lettering is reported as GALLY or GALLEYConfirmed

The Ogle cup

  • The Ogle cup's catalogue number T4426 could not be found in searchesUnverified
  • The Ogle cup's date, maker and hallmarks are undocumentedUnverified

John King remains identification

  • The child remains' identification as John King lacks a retrievable sourceLikely

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. The museum-object cluster is a class of evidence rather than a record series, dividing into an archaeological population of artefacts raised under state permit from two North American shipwrecks, a curatorial population of a small number of museum objects whose connection to piracy is commemorative, judicial or traditional, and a much larger penumbra of items whose pirate attribution rests on the assertion of later owners; the shipwreck material dates from roughly 1690 to 1725 and the associated commemorative, printed and judicial objects run later, to a 1734 engraving at Greenwich and a gibbet cage of 1750 to 1800. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Museum object records, agency excavation publications and institutional catalogue searches: Composite of the cluster's own institutional records as surveyed in the August 2026 research: Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project, North Carolina Office of State Archaeology; Whydah Pirate Museum, West Yarmouth; Royal Museums Greenwich (PAD2721, 1734); London Museum (object ID 53.14, dated 1750 to 1800)
  2. The Whydah Gally, Samuel Bellamy's flagship, was driven ashore off Wellfleet on Cape Cod on 26 April 1717 and located in 1984 by Barry Clifford, with a bronze ship's bell recovered in 1985, reported as inscribed THE WHYDAH GALLY 1716, carrying the site's identification; some 200,000 pieces have been raised since, including nearly 400 pieces of Akan goldwork and some 200 brass manillas of the kind used as West African trade currency, and the site has yielded human remains, a femur tested in 2018 against a descendant of Bellamy indicating a man of eastern Mediterranean ancestry and so excluding Bellamy, with the remains of six individuals reported from within large concretions in 2021. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Museum institutional history, popular science journalism and museum-affiliated news reporting: Whydah Pirate Museum, "Whydah Gally History and Our Mission" (Confirmed for the loss of 26 April 1717 and the 1984 location); Roff Smith, "We're still finding treasure from this 'golden age' pirate shipwreck", National Geographic, 12 September 2025, for the bell inscription and the artefact, goldwork and manilla counts; Isis Davis-Marks, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 February 2021, for the six individuals and the 2018 femur comparison. The counts and the bell lettering are custodian-originated or secondary and are Probable
  3. North Carolina shipwreck site 31CR314 was located near Beaufort Inlet on 21 November 1996 by a search team from Intersal, Inc. operating under state permit; as of 2015 the project reported 24 cannon raised and over 400,000 artefacts raised in all, the wreck and its contents are owned by the State of North Carolina, and the collection was kept intact in part through a 1998 agreement under which Intersal forewent its entitlement to coins and precious metals, while the identification of the site as Queen Anne's Revenge rests on cumulative circumstantial evidence, is accepted by the excavating agency and has been contested in print. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Agency narrative page, agency fact sheet and peer-reviewed article: Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project, "Blackbeard's Shipwreck Discovered", for the discovery of 21 November 1996 and the figures of 24 cannon as of 2015 and over 400,000 artefacts (Confirmed); North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, "Queen Anne's Revenge Fact Sheet", for state ownership and the 1998 Intersal agreement (Confirmed); Mark U. Wilde-Ramsing and Charles R. Ewen, "Beyond Reasonable Doubt: A Case for Queen Anne's Revenge", Historical Archaeology 46, number 2, 2012, pages 110 to 133, for the identification argument and the published scepticism it answers. The identification itself is Disputed as to certainty and is carried here as the excavators' argued conclusion
  4. The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, holds a coconut cup in a silver mount associated with Captain Chaloner Ogle and his defeat of Bartholomew Roberts at Cape Lopez on 10 February 1722, referenced T4426, that reference being inferred from the naming of image files on the museum's own feature and returning no record in the Royal Museums Greenwich collections search, and the museum declines to assert that the mount was made from Roberts's plundered silver, writing, "But we cannot be absolutely certain of any of this"; the judicial material is represented by the London Museum's wrought iron gibbet cage, object ID 53.14, dated 1750 to 1800 and held on long-term loan, which post-dates the golden age and is attributed to no named pirate. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Museum interpretive feature and museum object record: Royal Museums Greenwich, "Death of Bartholomew Roberts" (Captain Ogle's cup), for the description, the T4426 image-file reference and the quoted refusal (Confirmed as the museum's wording; Probable for the reference, which is inferred and unconfirmable in the collections search); London Museum, "Cage, gibbet", object ID 53.14, 1750 to 1800, long-term loan (Confirmed)
  5. A pewter urethral syringe recovered from 31CR314 carries a plunger-ring mark read as Paris of 1701 or 1708 and attributed to the pewterer Laurent Chatelain, recorded as practising from 1689 to 1724, with trace mercury detected in the interior residue consistent with treatment of venereal infection; and a 2026 elemental study of Whydah gold by Skowronek, Clifford and DeCorse in npj Heritage Science examined 70 pieces, 27 of them randomly selected for detailed analysis, returning 73.5 to 96.7 weight per cent gold with silver as the principal impurity at 0.04 to 22.6 weight per cent, its authors stating that the observed patterns do not support claims of systematic heavy adulteration of Akan gold and equally that their methods cannot conclusively identify intentional additions of silver or copper. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Institutional artefact catalogue entry and peer-reviewed archaeometric article: Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project, "Urethral Syringe", for the mark reading, the Chatelain attribution and the mercury residue (Probable; the reading and attribution are the project's and no accession number is published); Tobias B. Skowronek, Brandon Clifford and Christopher R. DeCorse, "Pirate gold provides new insights into West African trade using pXRF and SEM EDS analysis", npj Heritage Science 14, article 169, 2026, DOI 10.1038/s40494-026-02441-7 (Confirmed as the paper's own wording; the co-author Brandon Clifford is affiliated to the custodian organisation and facilitated access to the material)
  6. Outside the two excavated wrecks there is a near-total absence of authenticated personal artefacts belonging to identified golden-age pirates, Royal Museums Greenwich stating that very few flags survive from the golden age of piracy and that most of what is known about pirate flag design comes from eyewitness accounts, newspapers or books rather than from surviving textiles; no authenticated pirate flag of the 1690 to 1725 period has been identified in the collections and catalogues searched, which is the limit of the search rather than a proved negative. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Museum interpretive feature and survey of institutional collections: Royal Museums Greenwich, "Pirate flags decoded", for the museum's published position on the survival of flags (Confirmed); the wider absence of authenticated personal artefacts, and the failure to identify any authenticated flag of the period, rest on the collections and catalogues surveyed and are Probable