Last updated on August 29th, 2024 at 06:06 pm
Since the discovery of the Titanic wreckage in 1985, more than 5,000 artefacts have been laboriously brought up from the floor of the Atlantic. Many of these historic treasures are preserved in a highly secretive warehouse in Atlanta, Georgia, with very restricted access to it. Its exact location is not disclosed.
BBC Report on Titanic Artifacts
According to the BBC, the collection includes personal belongings and other artifacts. Handbags and perfume vials with their fragrance still intact are among some of them. Of course, these items give an extremely rare look into the lives of those on board the ship. Recently, the BBC was granted access to this secretive storage facility, a rare and exclusive opportunity.
RMS Titanic Inc.’s Exclusive Salvage Rights
This is due to a 1994 award by a US court, and through it, RMS Titanic Inc., which is based in the US, has exclusive right to perform any salvage of personal artifacts from within the wreck site of the ship. The bottoled recovered items must remain intact and may not be broken or divided for their historic and cultural values.
Marian Meanwell’s Purse
Among the hundreds of artifacts in the Titanic collection, there is a small exquisitely crafted alligator skin handbag belonging to Marian Meanwell, a 63-year-old milliner traveling in third class. Meanwell was on her way to America to be with her recently widowed daughter.
“It’s a really beautiful, fashionable little bag,” said Tomasina Ray, director of collections for RMS Titanic Inc. The purse, because it was so well sealed and floating, incredibly withstood the freezing waters of the North Atlantic for more than 80 years, preserving its precious contents. There, curators found a remains photograph, yellow paperwork, and a letter of reference, left with her London landlord, construdgingly, to offer a heartfelt handwritten referral. Perhaps most poignant, her medical inspection card documented she had originally reserved a passage on the Majestic but when that voyage was canceled, she was instead moved over to the ill-fated Titanic.
Other Notable Artifacts
Miniature perfume vials collected by Adolphe Saalfeld, a second-class passenger. Some of the bottles have been surprisingly discovered still sealed with the perfumes intact.
Champagne bottle, with uncorked closed, and bunches of assorted steel pins that were used as fasteners to pin the plates of the Titanic metal into position.