ONE HUNDRED years after work began on building the RMS Titanic in Belfast, the largest collection of artefacts recovered from the ship’s resting place on the Atlantic seabed opens in Citywest Hotel, Dublin, this Saturday.
The exhibition, Titanic the Artefact Exhibition – Real Objects, Real Stories, features more than 300 items, many of which have never been on public display before.
More than 5,500 items have been raised, but their ownership has yet to be decided by a maritime court sitting in Norfolk, Virginia, the US.
US firm RMS Titanic Inc, which recovered the items, has told the court it wants to be declared the legal owner in order to recover some of the costs of salvage.
RMS Titanic Inc is a subdivision of Premier Exhibitions of Atlanta, Georgia, which shows pieces of china and personal objects from the liner in the Titanic exhibition, which travels the world.
The items, valued at more than $75 million (€110 million), have been removed in about six expeditions, with more planned.
RMS Titanic Inc has been declared salver in possession of the wreck, giving it sole rights to recover artefacts from the seabed around the ship. Until the ownership issue is decided, the firm may not sell them.
The ship, which sank on April 14th, 1912, with the loss of 1,517 lives, was discovered in 1987.
It was at a depth of 4km, slightly more than 600km southeast of Mistaken Point, Newfoundland.
Included in the exhibition are clothes, papers and money which survived the massive seabed pressure and bacterial destruction by being encased in leather.
Items of china with the White Star Line logo have also been found.
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