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Wreck - hunters have discovered the clay of a small 17th - 100 sea rover ship , known as a Barbary corsair , in deep water supply between Spain and Morocco .
The wreck is " the first Algiers corsair establish in the Barbary heartland , " maritime archaeologistSean Kingsley , the editor - in - headman ofWreckwatch magazineand a researcher on the uncovering , told Live Science .
The ship was carrying a cargo of pots, pans and other metal items made in Algiers, supposedly so that the ship could masquerade as a trading vessel.
The vessel was heavily armed and may have been heading to the Spanish slide to capture and enslave the great unwashed when it sink , its discoverers sound out .
But it was carrying a loading of pot and pans made in the North African city of Algiers , believably so that it could masquerade as a trading vessel .
Florida - based fellowship Odyssey Marine Exploration ( OME ) locate theshipwreckin 2005 during a search for the stiff of the 80 - gun English combat ship HMS Sussex , which was lost in the area in 1694 .
Barbary pirates were a major threat in the Mediterranean and Atlantic from the 15th until the 19th centuries.(Image credit: Public domain)
" As so often happens in searching for a specific shipwreck we get a lot of sites never seen before,“Greg Stemm , the founder of OME and the sashay loss leader , told Live Science in an email .
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The 2005 expedition also found the wrecks of ancient Roman and Phoenician ships in the area , Stemm say .
The Barbary pirates preyed on ships and captured slaves in raids on coastal settlements along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of Europe.(Image credit: Public domain)
News of the corsair crash is only being unblock now , in anew article by Stemm in Wreckwatch , after extended historical inquiry .
Dread pirates
The Barbary Barbary pirate pirates were predominantly Muslims who get function in the fifteenth one C out of Algiers , which was then part of the Ottoman imperium .
Much of the western coastline of North Africa , from modern - Clarence Day Morocco to Libya , was roll in the hay as the " Barbary Coast " at the time — a name derived from the Berber masses who lived there ; and its pirates were a major scourge for more than 200 years , preying on ships and impart striver raids along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coast of Europe .
The hoi polloi trance in the hard worker raid were held for ransom money or sell into theNorth African striver tradethat operate in some Moslem countries until the other 20th C .
Captives from the corsair raids were ransomed or sold into slavery, sometimes at this slave market from the time in Algiers.(Image credit: Public domain)
But the piratical activities of the Barbary corsairs came to an end in the early 19th century , when the pirate were defeated in the Barbary Wars by the United States , Sweden and the Norman Kingdom of Sicily in southern Italy .
Sunken ship
The corsair wreck lies on the seafloor in the Strait of Gibraltar , at a depth of about 2,700 feet ( 830 meters ) .
The ship was about 45 human foot ( 14 m ) long , and research indicate it was a tartane — a small ship with triangularlateen sailson two masts that could also be propelled by oars .
Tartanes were used by Barbary pirates in the 17th and eighteenth centuries , in part because they were often mistaken for fishing vessels , meaning other ships would n’t suspect pirates were onboard , Kingsley said .
The corsair wreck was located in deep water in the Straits of Gibraltar, about midway between Morocco and Spain. It was heavily armed with the iron swivel guns (shown here) and four Dutch cannons.(Image credit: © Seascape Artifact Exhibits Inc. )
" I ’ve seen tartanes described as ' downhearted - level pirate ship , ' which I like , ” Kingsley say .
The wreck hunters explored the recessed corsair using a remotely operate fomite ( ROV ) , which revealed the vessel was armed with four large cannons , 10 swivel gun and many muskets for its crew of about 20 pirates .
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This glass wine or liquor bottle in the corsair wreck was made in Belgium or Germany.(Image credit: © Seascape Artifact Exhibits Inc.)
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" The wreck neatly fits the visibility of a Barbary Barbary pirate in location and part , " Kingsley said . " The ocean around the Straits of Gibraltar were the sea robber ' favorite hunting grounds , where a third of all Barbary pirate prize were ingest . "
Stemm contribute that the wrecked ship was also equipped with a very rare " glass " — an early eccentric of telescope that was rotatory at the time and had probably been conquer from a European ship .
Other artifact of the shipwreck support the notion this was a buccaneer ship ladened with steal good .
" throw off into the sunken intermixture a collection of glass liquor bottles made in Belgium or Germany , and tea bowls made in Ottoman Turkey , and the crash looks extremely suspicious , " he said . " This was no normal North African coastal trader . "
