Preserving history or grave robbing? How should we define artifacts taken from the R.M.S. Titanic, whose wreckage was discovred in 1985?

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (USA) was the first to discover the ill-fated ship; the French 'Infremer' and a Russian team followed. On the American voyage, Dr. Robert Ballard stated that there was much cheering and laughing at the moment of discovery, but soon this faded as Ballard reminded his crew that this was after all a gravesite for the 1500+ who died that terrible night in 1912. Ballard held an impromptu , non-denominational religious service on board.

Through the use of specially constructed submersables, the crews have enabled us to see inside the slowly decomposing wreck and the many artifacts littering the ocean floor. Chandeliers, shoes, bottles of wine, jewelry, cups and related items are plainly visible.

Is this a gravesite not to be violated for moral/ethical reasons? Or is it a piece of history that should be recovered for present and future generations?

Any human remains that were once there have long since disappeared. The usual laws of salvage should apply to any recovered artifacts. I don't recall anyone raising objec!ions when the SS Central America or the Atocha were discovered and objec!s removed.

They should be viewed, yes, by qualified people, and viewed reverently. Artifacts should be left 'as-is' for future generations. I like the plaque Ballard made and left on the bottom. When graverobbers stole it, he made and left a second one. He has the proper attitude of respect and reverence.

I think the salvage should be recovered and housed/displayed (honorably and respectfully) for public view. My personal belief is that it can be a greater tribute to the tragedy in a museum than it is entrenched at the bottom of the sea and that the possibility of educating some, giving it a 'tangibility', will make the reality of the event much more potent than any movie has or could. All of the survivors are gone now and it will soon be 100 years since the vessel went down. The time is, I think, proper for retrieval of the artifacts. And, I hasten to add, retrieval for the purpose of education and memorium - NOT for public auction to the highest bidder who wants to collect stuff for lesser motives.

But if such a catalogue of objects is to ever exist, it needs to be done quickly. There isn't much time left before the superstructure begins to collapse, and eventually disentigrate.This will succeed in burying not only a fascinating look into that tragedy, but an opportunity for us all to emotionally connect with the year 1912. I have worked with several museum collections over the years, and have found that young people are better able to sympathise with the past if they are shown common, everyday items like those that have been brought up from this wreck.
Connecting with a time before your own is increasingly hard for new generations, but important for them to understand what came before the society they were born into.
I was lucky enough to see some Titanic items at the Mariners' Museum in Virginia a few years back.

It's impossible not to be moved in some way by seeing these everyday objects...button hooks, dinner plates , account ledgers... slender kid gloves that were once part of someone's life.

It seems to me that the points made about things 'that were once part of someone's life' apply to any maritime wreck in which people perished and in which objects are preserved. The only differences are that the Titanic is well known and has captured the popular imagination.

Agreed, Bloomsby. I have been fascinated with Titanic ever since I was a child and read the Blossom Culp books. (Possibly even before that.) The tragedy surrounding the events of April 10, 1912 still lingers even in this youngest generation. (Movie or no movie, I think.) But realistically, the Titanic should be considered no different than any other wreck at sea. Approach it with reverence, yes. Salvage it for personal enrichment rather than personal gain, of course. But it is a maritime wreck like any other.

This may be a poignant case to illustrate where one draws the line between grave-robbing and history. Is resurrecting pompei grave-robbing? What about emptying the tomb of an ancient egyptian king? Digging up and studying the remains in Roman-era graves buried beneath modern London? Displaying artifacts from US civil war battlefields? How old does it have to be before it isn't considered grave-robbing any longer? How many generations between the living and the dead? Is it still grave-robbing as long as someone can say their grandfather died there? Or is it history after 50 years, 100 years, 150 years? Does the importance of the event have any role in deciding that? What about the traditions of the peoples involved, as in the long-standing battle between my own University of Nebraska and the Native American tribes in the area over bones from NA burial mounds? For some cultures, a body buried there MAKES it sacred ground, for others the ground is sanctified so the dead CAN be buried there. So, what makes something a gravesite? A thoroughly interesting discussion.

For most Western people, a grave on land is usually the actual grave plus a small area round it (or if it's in a cemetery, the whole cemetery or graveyard); at sea it's the whole wreck.

However, in countries where land values are high attitudes may be different. In some part of Switzerland, it's customary to 'plough up' graveyards every 100(?) years, move the remains and stones to the periphery and re-use the burial ground. I've a feeling that in some cantons (comparable to states) burial grounds may be 'ploughed up' much more often.

Obviously, one important difference between graves on land and at sea is generally this. In most societies people buried on land are separated from their possessions before burial, though there are a few cases of people being buried with some of their possessions. This includes quite a range of things - from the single schoolmistress who had love letters written to her buried with her, Viking grandees who had quite substantial possessions buried with them, plus a slave or two as a human sacrifice(!) - to the treasures that were buried with the Pharoahs. With a few exceptions, there's no question of grave-robbing or anything like that.

At sea, however, a wrecked ship usually sank with little warning, and with various artefacts ... It seems to me that most of the dilemmas are most likely to arise in maritime wrecks rather then ordinary graves.

It's hard to imagine why one particular wreck would capture the public imagination so much more than another. True there have been many lost ships, and that includes the Lusitania, which sank in a heart stopping 18 minutes and carried almost 1200 souls with it. Lost within three years of the Titanic, she represented roughly the same time period in history. The Lusitania was actually a little more notable in some ways, because her demise due to a German torpedo hit helped create the atmosphere in which America entered the first world war.
Yet I seldom hear anything about the Lusitania, let alone there being publicised expeditions to recover some of the wreckage. I would hazzard a guess and say that the glamour, money and sheer arrogance associated with the Titanic has won the public's curiousity over the even more dramatic [ but somewhat less showy ?] sinking of the wartime Lusitania.

Kate, I like you reference to the 'sheer arrogance associated with the Titanic'.

Once something has estalished itself in the public imagination it's often quite impossible to say why. It's somehow fascinated people for a long time. I remember being taken as a boy in the mid 1950s to see a 1953 black and white film on the sinking of the ship. Already then, at a time when there was no realistic prospect of exploring the wreck the subject-matter somehow fascinated people.

I vividly recall my mother cheerfully singing a mildly satirical version of 'Nearer, my God, to Thee' as we walked home from the cinema. She said she hadn't heard the hymn for ages and then proceeded to sing it in a super classy accent - 'Nearaaa, my God, to Thee/ Nearaaa to Thee ...' (Apologies to those don't get the point of the spelling. ) It was one of my earliest experiences of ambiguity: was my mother making fun of the hymn; was she simply enjoying herself, or what was going on? I resigned myself to never finding out. I decided that the main thing was that she was enjoying herself. Actually, the whole incident was a bit odd, as in those days, it was ususual for people to sing in the street in London - but obviously there was no ban on it.


It's sometimes said that the sinking of the Titanic was a reminder to an optimistic and rather complacent Europe (and America ?) that horror, premature death and disaster can and do happen. In retrospect, some saw it as some kind of haringer of WWI, after which 'nothing was the same again' in Europe. However, I imagine that this feeling wouldn't be shared by younger generations.

Here are two links that may be interest:

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/re...g_titanic_4.cfm


http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/re...g_titanic_5.cfm

Edited to remove some of the smilies.

I think perhaps, kstew, at least SOME of the romance with the Titanic is because of it's long mystery. The public seldom hears about the Lusitania because it is not new and didn't remain shrouded in gloomy questions for the better part of a century. Divers were exploring the wreck as early as 1960, if not earlier and Ballard, of Titanic history, explored the Lusitania only 5 years after finding Titanic. And June of last year saw the end of a court battle between the Irish State and the owner of salvage rights on Lusitania. Gregg Bemis won, and intends to inspect the wreck to see if it can be determined what caused the second explosion and also to recover artifacts. Although, I believe that the Irish government keeps rights to certain things of value. I only recall hearing it as a sort of aside during the long weeks of shipwreck discovery channel and PBS shows I've watched.

I think to some extent modern romance associated with Titanic was greatly stirred by the discover of the wreck and the huge amount of publicity associated with it, not to mention that the long years of mystery added to it considerably. And it is that romance more than anything else, I'm sure, that has anyone wondering whether it should be salvaged or not. The Lusitania's wreck was not lost, there were no long years of wondering and mourning. The ship plunged the US into WWI and America didn't have time to mourn the grand liner and it's passengers and crew. We were too busy mourning our soldiers. And within 15 years of the end of the war people were already exploring the wreck. It all happened too fast and under too much tumult to really catch American imagination. No idea how that all translates to the UK or other parts of Europe, or even if the court battle had something to do with a retisence to "grave rob" at the Lusitania wreck as well.

Bloomsby, what you say about graves at sea is probably true, although at least among sailors and their families I think that a grave at sea, whether a wreck or a sea burial, is a sort of... Well, I think it's different. Their souls are given unto the sea, if you catch my meaning. Of course, with modern technology to actually SEE shipwrecks, things have to have changed, but even as little as 100 years ago, a wreck at sea was not considered a gravesite. None would ever see it again unless it washed ashore in pieces. The sea was their grave, not the wreck. I guess I figure that the older tradition is perhaps the better in this case.

Yes, Sue, that's spot on!