David Moore (archaeologist)

David Moore is an American archaeologist and historian. He is best known for his work on the Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project.^[1][2] The Queen Anne's Revenge was the flagship of the infamous pirate Blackbeard. He used her for less than a year, but she was an effective tool in his prize-taking.^[3]

Moore has worked as a maritime archaeologist exploring a shipwreck believed to be part of the 1622 Spanish treasure fleet sunk near the Dry Tortugas. The wreck, located in 1332' (406m) of water, yielded olive jars, copper, gold, silver, glass and other cultural artifacts.^[4] He also served as project archaeologist for the team that excavated the wreck of the slave ship, the Henrietta Marie.^[5][6] The Henrietta Marie wreck has yielded more than 7000 objects (and more than 30,000 glass beads), the largest collection of artifacts known from a slave ship. Parts making up more than 80 bilboes, which were typically used to shackle pairs of slaves together, have been found at the wreck site. Other items found at the wreck site include trade goods apparently left over from trading for captives in Africa, goods acquired in Africa in addition to captives (including an elephant tusk), and gear belonging to the ship and crew. Part of the hull of the ship, including much of the keel and part of the stern post, have survived. The 1500 lb. sternpost was recovered in November of 2007.^[7][8]

Currently Moore is the nautical archaeology curator at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort, North Carolina^[9] and is considered the project expert on Blackbeard.^[10] He has appeared in the documentaries Real Pirates of the Caribbean (History Channel), Secrets of the Dead: Blackbeard's Lost Ship (PBS), Secrets: Blackbeard's Ship (Smithsonian Channel), the "Pirates" episode of Biography and on the "Pirate Tech" episode of Modern Marvels. He is also responsible for much of the underwater mapping on the Queen Anne's Revenge wrecksite and updating the site plan.^[11] The Queen Anne's Revenge lies in 28 feet (8.5m) of water about one mile (1.6 km) offshore of Fort Macon State Park (34°41′44″N 76°41′20″W), Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. Thirty-one cannons have been identified to date and more than 250,000 artifacts have been recovered.^[12] The cannon are of different origins such as; Swedish, English and possibly French, and of different sizes as would be expected with a colonial pirate crew.^[13]

Education

Moore attended East Carolina University where he received a master's degree in Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology in 1989.^[2]

Works

• Submerged Cultural Resources Associated with Blackbeard the Pirate. (1982)
• Anatomy of a 17th century slave ship: historical and archaeological investigations of "The Henrietta Marie 1699". (1989)
• A General History of Blackbeard the Pirate, the Queen Anne's Revenge and the Adventure. In Tributaries, Volume VII, 1997. pp. 31–35. (North Carolina Maritime History Council)
• Site report: historical & archaeological investigations of the shipwreck Henrietta Marie (1997)
• Historical and Archaeological Research Focused on the Hull Remains Associated with Site 0003BUI, Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina. Underwater Archaeology Proceedings form the Society for Historical Archaeology Conference, 1999: 133-140
• Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge: Archaeological Interpretation and Research Focused on the Hull Remains and Ship-related Accoutrements Associated with Site 31-CR-314. Tributaries No 11, p. 39-47, 2001.
• Blackbeard's Capture of the Nantaise Slave Ship La Concorde: A Brief Analysis of the Documentary Evidence. David D. Moore and Mike Daniel, Tributaries Vol 11, p. 14-31, 2001.
• Technical Comments Relating to 'Ruling Theory' and the Identification of the Beaufort Inlet Wreck. The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 34(2):335-339, 2005.
• Seventeenth-Century Vehicle of the Middle Passage: Archaeological and Historical Investigations on the "Henrietta Marie" Shipwreck Site. David D. Moore and Corey Malcom, International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Vol. 12, No. 1, The Archaeology of Slave Ships (March 2008), pp. 20-38

References

External links

• Last Voyage of the Slave Ship Henrietta Marie, National Geographic
• A Slave Ship Speaks
• Battle Begins Over World's Richest Shipwreck, National Geographic
• Plunder disputes plague the wreck of Blackbeard’s ship, Soundings