Real Pirates Come to Chicago

Exhibit opens at Field Museum

Talk about buried treasures! This one is a doozy.

An exhibit of bounty found during the excavation of a nearly 300-year-old wrecked pirate ship is opening at Chicago's Field Museum today, and the stories that stuff could tell.

The sunken Whydah, discovered off the coast of Cape Cod, was once a slave ship. Barry Clifford, who made the discovery, says "he doesn't want to profit from that dark history," the Chicago Sun-Times reported, but the traveling exhibit will display, among other things, "a pissoir (pirate toilet), gibbet (metal device used to display hanged bodies) and plenty of coins."   

Arghh, Matey.  This collection beats all.

Built in 1715 as a slave ship, the Whydah was commandeered in 1717 by pirate Capt. Sam Bellamy, "who hoisted the Jolly Roger so all would know its piratical affiliation. It sank in a storm off Cape Cod three months after Bellamy captured it," the paper's reporter Kara Spak wrote. 

The exhibit, "Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship," runs through Oct. 25 at The Field Museum.

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