Archaeologists working on the wreck of Queen Anne's Revenge along the North Carolina coast have discovered paper fragments in wet sludge removed from inside a cannon of Blackbeard's ship.
The Salisbury Post reports finding paper in shipwrecks of that age is extremely rare because it normally disintegrates so quickly in water. The ship sank 300 years ago.
Conservators with the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources’ Queen Anne’s Revenge Conservation Lab in Greenville were able to figure out the paper fragments were once part of a book written by Captain Edward Cooke narrating his voyages of exploration in the early 1700s.
The works of Cooke and other explorers were the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's story "Robinson Crusoe."
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