With the impending arrival of International Talk Like a Pirate Day 2016, and as one of the few people at AAL with an interest in anything as “modern” as the Golden Age of Piracy (c.1650-1730), I have been asked to write a short post about Pirate Archaeology.

AAL staff get piratical

Of course, everyone knows what pirates, and pirate ships look like-eyepatch, wooden leg, parrot, Jolly Roger, overflowing treasure chests, right? See, for example, the photos of Allen Archaeology pirates, above.

Unfortunately (at the risk of disappointing pirate fans) these stereotypes have entered the collective consciousness largely through fictionalised accounts, ranging from Treasure Island to Pirates of the Caribbean, dating to long after the Golden Age.

Of course, there’s no reason why some of the traits associated with pirates might not have been, to some extent, accurate. For instance, pirates may well have lost eyes, or limbs, in the course of their careers. But the same would be true of sailors serving on naval men-of-war, or on armed merchantmen. Similarly, the slang, songs and manner of dress used by pirates may have marked them as sailors, but not as buccaneers (advertising your criminal behaviour has never been considered a smart move, especially when capital punishment is involved). So, the big question is how, if at all, is it possible to identify the historical practice of piracy, archaeologically, either on land or at sea?

The Whydah bell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whydah_Gally)

In very simple terms, the best way of identifying a type of archaeological site is to compare it with known examples of that type. Unfortunately for the archaeology of piracy, there is only one absolutely, categorically proven example of a ‘pirate site’, the wreck of the Whydah. The confidence in its attribution is possible because it was historically documented as being a pirate ship when it sank in a storm off Cape Cod, and because the ship’s bell, inscribed THE WHYDAH GALLY 1716 was recovered during an archaeological investigation of the wreck in 1985. There are other shipwreck sites for which there is less concrete evidence, for instance the suspected Queen Anne’s Revenge (Shipwreck Site 0003BU), believed to be the former naval frigate used by Edward ‘Blackbeard’ Teach as his flagship. More tenuously, what may be the wreck of Henry Morgan’s ship Satisfaction, lies at Lajas Reef off Panama.

Captain Kidd. Note lack of eyepatch, tricorn hat, parrot, etc…

The last example is helpful in illustrating the scale of the problem. Not only is the identification of the wreck uncertain, but if it is Morgan’s ship, another question arises: what is the difference between a pirate and a privateer? A privateer was a state sanctioned pirate, with a ‘letter of marque and reprisal’ from their government, giving a licence to attack the commerce of enemy powers, so long as the authorities got their share! Many famous “pirates” began their careers as privateers and, in at least one case, insisted that they always were. Captain William Kidd (incidentally the ONLY “pirate” for whom we there is evidence that they buried treasure) was hanged for piracy in 1701, largely for his capture of the Armenian vessel Quedagh Merchant, which was sailing under French passes, and was thus viewed by Kidd as a legitimate prize. Unfortunately for Kidd, her captain was English and this did little to aid his defence. Kidd had already been accused of turning to piracy on his current voyage. In fact, his crew, who only made money if they captured ships, had been on the verge of doing just that, and deserted Kidd to join the pirate Robert Culliford shortly after the Quedagh Merchant was taken.

All of this shows how fine the line could be between a crew of pirates and a crew of privateers. Added to this, the vessels they sailed would be virtually identical, and one could easily become the other. As Lawrence Babits observes, “an armed merchantman or a privateer would have many of the same attributes of pirate vessels” (Babits 1998), partly because they were designed for exactly the same type of conflict. And armed merchantmen were not uncommon – the English Armada of 1589 (strangely not as celebrated in the UK as the Spanish Armada of the previous year, perhaps because the expedition was an unmitigated disaster) had 10 armed merchantmen for every ship of the line.

The answer to the question of whether and how archaeologists can identify pirates then is that without good luck, backed up by historical documentation, it’s not really possible, but the discipline of the archaeology of piracy is in its infancy, and so many people are working on it. These people include Russell K. Skowronek and Charles Robin Ewen, who have co-edited two books, X Marks the Spot: The Archaeology of Piracy and Pieces of Eight: More Archaeology of Piracy about the subject. Although the first book admits that ‘any suggested pirate ship or pirate artefact model includes precisely those items that an armed merchantman would have’. These books represent the beginnings of the search for an answer to this problem, and are recommended to anyone who wants to know more about pirate arrrrrrrrrrrchaeology!

Babits, Lawrence E. I Just Know it’s a Pirate: Popular Imagery, Contemporary Details and Actual Fact in Underwater Archaeology 1998 (Lawrence E. Babits, Catherine Fach, Ryan Harris Editors)