Mr. Teach's cannon?

Admittedly, it looks "more like a concrete ditch pipe than a cannon," but the 2,500-pound relic of the sea near Beaufort Inlet may be a cannon from Blackbeard's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge.

"This is really special to us because it has a lot of things attached to it," Mark Wilde-Ramsing, director of the state's Queen Anne's Revenge project, told the News & Observer.

He said researchers will carefully remove a pewter plate, wood and other items for further study. The cast-iron cannon, which was retrieved from the water Monday, will soon go into treatment process to halt corrosion. After three to five years, the cannon will be black and shiny and ready for display.

Researchers put the encrusted cannon on display Wednesday at the N.C. Maritime Museum expansion site on Gallants Channel. ...

The shipwreck site was located in November 1996 by Intersal, Inc., a private company. State archaeologists say research over 11 years supports the wreck's identity as the Queen Anne's Revenge. The ship ran aground in June 1718. About 2,000 relics have been recovered from the site just off Atlantic Beach.