JACKSONVILLE — Divers are expected to recover smaller items during an eight-week expedition at the wreck of the ship that’s believed to have belonged to Blackbeard.

The expedition begins this week in an area of the Queen Anne’s Revenge where divers have not searched much. The shipwreck is located in the Beaufort Inlet.

The team expects to find small artifacts such as ballast stones when the excavation begins the week of Sept. 17.

In 1717, Blackbeard captured a French slave ship and renamed it Queen Anne’s Revenge. Blackbeard settled in Bath and received a governor’s pardon. Volunteers with the Royal Navy killed him in Ocracoke Inlet in November 1718, five months after the ship thought to be Queen Anne’s Revenge sank.