YARMOUTH, MASS. (WHDH) - At least six more pirate skeletons have been discovered in a shipwreck off the coast of Cape Cod, investigators announced Wednesday.
The remains were unearthed from the wreck site of the legendary pirate ship, The Whydah, which went down off of Wellfleet in 1717, according to the investigative team from the Whydah Pirate Museum.
They were identified in several large concretions and are currently being examined by renowned underwater explorer Barry Clifford and his team of archeologists, including son Brandon Clifford, longtime Whydah diver & historian Chris Macort, and New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman.
“We hope that modern, cutting-edge technology will help us identify these pirates and reunite them with any descendants who could be out there,” said Clifford, who discovered the Whydah Galley, the only world’s only authenticated pirate wreck in 1984 . “This shipwreck is very sacred ground. We know a third of the crew was of African origin and the fact they had robbed the Whydah, which was a slave ship, presents them in a whole new light. Their benevolent captain, the legendary Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy and crew were experimenting in democracy long before the so-called civilized societies had considered such a thing.”
Sherman obtained Bellamy’s DNA through a bloodline descendent in Devonshire, England in 2018 and had the sample tested against a human bone found in the wreck, by forensic scientists from the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences at the University of New Haven.
“That bone was identified as a human male with general ties to the Eastern Mediterranean area,” said Sherman. “These newly found skeletal remains may finally lead us to Bellamy as we now have his DNA.”
The concretion holding the remains of the original Whydah pirate is now on display at the Whydah Pirate Museum on Cape Cod.
(Copyright (c) 2024 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)