Washington, October 22 Reports indicate that an anchor from the shipwreck believed to be Blackbeard's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, has been raised and is on display in a museum in North Carolina (NC), US, before conservation of the artifact begins.

The four-and-a half-foot grapnel, a small four-pronged anchor, has been resting loosely in the sand on the ocean's bottom and was considered too vulnerable to leave exposed to possible storms until the full-scale expedition, according to state officials.

A team of NC Department of Cultural Resources archaeologists and conservators raised the grapnel on October 21 from the QAR site off Beaufort and the public will have two opportunities on October 22 to see it.

The wrought iron grapnel, which still has two remaining prongs, will be shown at the N.C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. (US) and again at the QAR Conservation Lab in Greenville from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. (ANI)