Researchers are working to use DNA to identify whether a human bone recovered from a Cape Cod shipwreck belongs to the infamous pirate Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy.
The Whydah (WIH'-duh) Pirate Museum in Yarmouth, Massachusetts, publicly displayed the bone Monday. It was found near what is believed to be Bellamy's pistol. The objects were pulled from the Whydah Gally (GAH'-lee) shipwreck several years ago.
Officials at the museum have enlisted forensic scientists to extract DNA and compare it with DNA from a living Bellamy descendant. The forensic testing will take about a month.
Business magazine Forbes has listed Bellamy as the highest-earning pirate ever. Legend says he plundered about $120 million worth of treasure in a little over a year.
The Whydah Gally sank in 1717. The wreck was not discovered until 1984. Treasure hunter Barry Clifford found the ship buried under 10–50 feet of ocean sand. (See “Buried Pirate Treasure” and “Mystery Ships” in WORLDteen.) The following year, divers found the Whydah’s bell. Then in 2013, divers found a small brass plate. Both the bell and the plate were engraved with the ship name and the year of its first voyage, 1716. Most of the Whydah’s treasure is thought to remain on—or under—the ocean floor.
(AP Photo: An archaeologist probes the solidified sediment surrounding a leg bone salvaged from the Whydah Gally shipwreck.)
