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Friday, November 5, 2010

New Titanic Relics on Exhibition in London

LONDON Fri Oct 15, 2010 12:17pm BST

LONDON (Reuters) - The legend of the Titanic lands in London next month with an exhibition featuring 14 new artefacts from the sunken trans-atlantic liner and video footage from the site of the wreck.

"Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition" opens November 5 at the 02 Arena, and focuses on the human stories behind the liner's 1912 collision with an iceberg that killed 1,517 people.
The exact location of the sunken ship was a mystery until 1985, when it was discovered several hundred miles off the coast of Newfoundland.

Scientists from RMS Titanic, Inc, the only company permitted to recover objects from the wreck, launched a mission this summer to map the entire wreckage site for the first time.
The exhibit will share new footage of their expedition, along with relics like perfume bottles from a manufacturer travelling to New York to hawk his wares and the pocket watch of a rich passenger.

The new items include postcards, sheet music and stamps.

"On that unexpected night in 1912, more than 1,500 passengers met the same fate no matter what their class or place in society, a shocking end to what was a joyous journey," said Cheryl Mure, vice president of education for RMS Titanic.

The exhibition will display more than 300 artefacts in all, as well as recreations of the ship's rooms, and galleries showing how the sinking of the liner resonated in London at the time.

The RMS Titanic was the world's largest passenger steamship when it set sail from Southampton, England to New York on its maiden voyage on April 10, 1912. Four days into the trip, the ship crashed into an iceberg and sank, shocking the world.

Visitors to the exhibit will receive a replica boarding pass of an actual passenger aboard the ship, and can check the memorial wall to see if their passenger survived or perished.

(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov; Editing by Steve Addison)