The bottom of the ocean is home to countless untouched relics of the ancient world.
Now, a link to a dark past is being rediscovered.
And Florida treasure hunters found one sunken ship that belonged to these scary pirates.
Barbary pirate ship uncovered after hundreds of years
The Barbary pirates terrorized the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean from the Middle Ages until the 1830s when they were finally crushed.
Based in the Barbary Coast of North Africa, encompassing modern-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya these Islamic pirates and privateers disrupted commerce on the high seas.
The United States fought two wars against them to stop their piracy against American vessels from 1801 to 1805 and 1815.
Fighting against the Barbary pirates is memorialized in the Marines’ Hymn line, “To the shores of Tripoli,” about the Battle of Derna.
Florida-based treasure hunters Odyssey Marine Exploration found a sunken 45-foot ship that belonged to the Barbary Pirates at the bottom of the Mediterranean.
Wreckwatch magazine editor Sean Kingsley estimated that the ship may have gone down around 1760 based on the artifacts on it.
“Most of the pottery has exact parallels in the 18th-century ceramics excavated during rescue work in Martyrs’ Square in Algiers,” Kingsley told Newsweek. “The Ottoman bowls on the wreck stopped being made in Turkey around 1755. The tightest dating comes from the glass bottles that were blown, at latest, 1740-1760. So, the ship can’t postdate 1760.”
Piracy was a constant threat for centuries in the Mediterranean
The sunken ship is believed to be connected to the city of Algiers, the capital of Algeria.
Algiers was a hotbed of piracy on the ancient Barbary Coast.
Seascape Artifact Exhibits Inc. director Greg Stemm said the pirates that came from the ancient city were feared.
“The threat of Algiers’ corsairs was an everyday terror for the West,” Stemm explained. “The shipwreck found in deep waters is a precious echo of one of the western Mediterranean’s great maritime horrors.”
The city attracted scoundrels who looked to make their fortune on the high seas through piracy.
“Less famous than the pirates of the Caribbean, the corsair capital of Algiers turned to piracy far earlier and was a much bigger business,” Kingsley said. “From 1525 to 1830, an entire city of 60,000 ‘rogues and renegades’ lived by the sword.”
The Algiers pirates were known for their brutality.
“Not only did they take your wealth, they enslaved anyone caught to ransom back for a heavy fee,” Kingsley explained. “It was an atrocity of everyday life that Western traders had to gamble with.”
Odyssey Marine Exploration stumbled upon the sunken Barbary vessel by accident while searching for the British ship HMS Sussex which was lost in a storm in 1694.
Kingsley said this ship is the first that has weapons and artifacts that can be traced back to Algiers.
“The wrecked corsair ship was very heavily armed with muskets, four large cannon and 10 swivel guns. When the captain ran into trouble, these antipersonnel weapons could be quickly installed for attacking crews in the rigging and on decks,” Kingsley stated.
The finding of this ship proves there are still countless historical artifacts sitting at the bottom of the ocean waiting to be discovered.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
