5 cannons raised from wreck of Blackbeard's ship

BEAUFORT, N.C. Archeologists have recovered five more cannons from the wreck of Blackbeard's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge.

The largest of the guns raised Monday weighs about 3,000 pounds. The wreckage of the ship is in Beaufort Inlet.

"Today is definitely a red-letter day: five guns coming off the site," said David Moore, who has been a member of the recovery team since it began.

Project director Billy Ray Morris says historians think the largest cannon was made in Sweden, indicating that Blackbeard had guns from different countries.

The team has identified nearly 30 cannons at the site and has said the ship may have had as many as 40 heavy cannons onboard when it ran aground in 1718. Twenty-two of the guns have been recovered.

The wreckage was found in 1996.

State officials say about 280,000 artifacts have been recovered from the wreck.

The fall dive is wrapping up for the year.

"We're going to continue excavating the site and have it completed by 2014," Billy Ray Morris said.

A Queen Anne's Revenge exhibit is located at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort, the official repository for artifacts from the site.