More Artifacts Recovered From Pirate Ship Wreck Off Cape Cod

November 23, 2018

The Associated Press

In this Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016 photo, archaeologist Marie Kesten Zahn, of Yarmouth, Mass. displays a silver coin recovered from the wreckage of the pirate ship Whydah Gally at the Whydah Pirate Museum, in Yarmouth. The undersea explorer Barry Clifford, who discovered the Whydah Gally, the first authenticated pirate shipwreck in U.S. waters, says he’s finally found where the ship’s vaunted treasure lies after more than 30 years of poking around the murky waters off Cape Cod. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

The man leading the exploration of a pirate ship that sank off the coast of Cape Cod 300 years ago says this year's excavations at the site have yielded hundreds of bracelets and other artifacts.

Barry Clifford, who discovered the Whydah in 1984, tells the Cape Cod Times that 600 of the bracelets known as manillas were recovered from the site before October storms put an end to this year's efforts.

He says the bracelets made of copper and bronze were once a form of currency along the West African coast and were worn by women as a display of wealth.

The team also recovered a concretion containing the barrel and walnut stock of a musket that may date to the late 1600s or early 1700s.

The Whydah sank in 1717.