Archaeologist Chris Macort holds a bronze wheel wax seal recovered from the wreckage of the pirate ship Whydah Gally, date made: before 1717 (a so called terminus ante quem )
The former slave ship, commanded by the English pirate Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy, went down in stormy seas off Wellfleet, Massachusetts, in 1717, killing all but a handful of the nearly 150-person crew.























