Barry Clifford

Barry Clifford
Underwater Explorer Barry Clifford
Born	1945 (age 71–72) Cape Cod, Massachusetts, U.S.

Barry Clifford is an underwater archaeological explorer best known for discovering the remains of Samuel Bellamy's wrecked pirate ship Whydah [pronounced wih-duh], the only fully verified and authenticated pirate shipwreck of the Golden Age of Piracy ever discovered in the world – as such, artifacts from the wreck provide historians with unique insights into the material, political and social culture of early 18th-century piracy.

Citing federal admiralty law in 1988, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that 100% of the Whydah rightfully belonged to Clifford, and he has kept The Whydah Collection intact without selling a single piece of the more than 200,000 recovered artifacts, which includes tens of thousands of coins, more than 60 cannon, and the "everyday" objects used by the crew. Clifford also has exclusive dive rights to the site, which is patrolled by the National Park Service and U.S. Coast Guard. He maintains a large private facility in which the majority of the artifacts are kept for conservation and examination; however, Clifford exhibits a variety of artifacts from the Whydah, as well as from other of his many shipwreck discoveries, for the public to enjoy at his WHYDAH PIRATE MUSEUM in Provincetown, Massachusetts, with a smaller selection of artifacts on an international touring exhibition through a National Geographic/Premier Exhibitions joint venture, called REAL PIRATES. The Whydah Project has been called "a model of underwater archaeology" by the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources, and is the subject of several book and television documentaries on the National Geographic Channel, the Discovery Channel, History Channel, PBS, BBC One, A&E, NBC, and others, and has been featured in virtually every major print publication, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, People, National Geographic Magazine, Parade, USA Today, The London Independent, Cape Cod Times, etc.

Born in 1945 on Cape Cod, Barry Clifford has been involved in underwater exploration for most of his adult life. He graduated from Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield, Maine before earning a bachelor's degree in History and Sociology from Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado, and received graduate training at Bridgewater State College in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.