It’s funny what turns up when you scour the site of a 112-year-old shipwreck, eh?
The Titanic has called the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean home for more than a century after the supposedly ‘unsinkable’ ocean liner fatefully collided with a giant iceberg, meaning it remains something of an underwater museum to this day.
Although there are no skeletons down there, there are plenty of other artefacts still nestled in among the debris.
But as we all know, human expeditions to go and explore the wreckage in submersibles can be fatal – which those onboard the Titan sub tragically found out the hard way.
However, robots, on the other hand, fare much better when diving to the depths.
And the remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) which were sent down to take a look at the site this summer by RMS Titanic Inc have come up trumps, managing to track down a lost relic which a researcher compared to ‘a needle in a haystack’.
The American company – which owns the exclusive salvage rights to the Titanic wreck – carried out the latest expedition throughout July and August in the hopes of getting an update on how the skeleton of the ship is doing.
After over 100 years beneath the waves, I’m sure we’d all be looking a bit rough around the edges.
The ROVs managed to capture more than two million images, as well as 24 hours of footage, of the Titanic and the field of debris surrounding it, which revealed the impact a century of decay has had on it.
The first shock came when RMS Titanic Inc realised that a large section of railing which was on the bow now lies on the seabed, having fallen off since the last images were snapped of it in 2022.
Yep, the ones where Jack showed Rose ‘how to fly’ in James Cameron’s 1997 film – I know, we’re just as gutted as you are.
Incredible new images of the Titanic wreckage have been released (RMS Titanic Inc)
Speaking of the discovery, director of collections at RMS Titanic Inc Tomasina Ray told the BBC: “The bow of Titanic is just iconic – you have all these moments in pop culture – and that’s what you think of when you think of the shipwreck.
“And it doesn’t look like that anymore.
“It’s just another reminder of the deterioration that’s happening every day. People ask all the time: ‘How long is Titanic going to be there?’ We just don’t know, but we’re watching it in real time.”
Images and digital scans of the bow taken by deep-sea mapping company Magellan and documentary makers Atlantic Productions two years ago did reveal that it had started to buckle, but it seems to have collapsed at some point since.
The microbes which are slowly eating away the Titanic’s metal structure will probably have a field day with it, though.
They’ve already taken a good chunk out of the ship and have been creating stalactites – which are icicle-shaped deposits – of rust, called rusticles, the new footage and images have revealed.
RMS Titanic Inc is now carefully combing through their findings and will later produce an in-depth digital 3D scan of the entire wreck site, while they will also release further images of this summer’s expedition in the future.
3D imaging shows the iconic railings are now on the seabed (RMS Titanic Inc)
But don’t worry, the discoveries weren’t all doom and gloom – as RMS Titanic Inc managed to make an extraordinary finding when they sent the underwater robots down there too.
Basically, back in 1985, oceanographers Jean-Louis Michel and Robert Ballard managed to find the wreck after countless others had tried and failed – and the following year, Ballard snapped a photo of something he’d noticed down there.
It was a 60cm-tall bronze statue, known as the Diana of Versailles, which had taken pride of place in the first class lounge of the Titanic when it set off on its maiden voyage.
However, it was only photographed on that one occasion by Ballard in 1986 and it’s location therefore remained unknown.
That was until just hours before the recent expedition was set to end, the ROVs tracked down the Diana of Versailles lying face up in the sediment in the field of debris which surrounds the wreckage.
James Penca, a Titanic researcher and presenter of the Witness Titanic podcast, described the discovery as ‘momentous’ and explained the statue was the ‘one artefact at the top of our list’ of items which they eventually want to recover.
The Diana of Versailles was described as a ‘needle in a haystack’ (RMS Titanic Inc)
He explained: “It was like finding a needle in a haystack, and to rediscover this year was momentous.
“The first-class lounge was the most beautiful, and unbelievably detailed, room on the ship. And the centrepiece of that room was the Diana of Versailles.
“But unfortunately, when Titanic split in two during the sinking, the lounge got ripped open. And in the chaos and the destruction, Diana got ripped off her mantle and she landed in the darkness of the debris field.”
Although he is aware a lot of people think the Titanic wreckage is something that is best left alone, Penca believes the rediscovery of the Diana of Versailles is the ‘perfect argument against leaving Titanic alone’.
He continued: “This was a piece of art that was meant to be viewed and appreciated. And now that beautiful piece of art is on the ocean floor… in pitch black darkness where she has been for 112 years.
“To bring Diana back so people can see her with their own eyes – the value in that, to spark a love of history, of diving, of conservation, of shipwrecks, of sculpture, I could never leave that on the ocean floor.”
Featured Image Credit: RMS Titanic Inc
Topics: Titanic, News, Technology, World News, History
