Stunning new photos taken from the wreckage of the Titanic show the effect of time and the North Atlantic on the famous ship, with large sections of its deck railings snapping off and sinking to the ocean floor.
The ship's iconic railing around the bow, made famous by James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster film, was rediscovered this summer during several underwater robotic dives, according to CBS News.
“The Titanic's bow is iconic,” said Georgia-based RMS Titanic Inc., which owns the 112-year-old ship. Website.
“The statue is an unforgettable sight, rising from the ocean floor as a testament to the ship's strength and defiance,” the statement continued. “The railing surrounding the forecastle at the bow, once miraculously intact, was missing a 15-foot section on the port side.”
As CBS reports, the company just finished its first expedition to the underwater tomb in nearly 14 years, and on Monday released new images from an accumulation of more than 2 million high-resolution photos taken during the 20-day expedition, which ended on Aug. 9 in Providence, Rhode Island.
Thomasina Ray, director of collections at RMS Titanic, said the discovery of the broken railing was a “reminder of the deterioration that takes place every day” at the undersea site.
“People always ask: 'How long is the Titanic going to be stuck there?'” he says. “We don't know, but we're watching it in real time.”
The team also plans to map the entire wreck and share the data with the rest of the scientific community, CBS reported.
But the news wasn't all bad.
Lying amongst a pile of rubble, the team discovered a two-foot-tall bronze statue that had once been on display for first-class passengers but was thought to have been lost forever.
According to CBS, the statue, named “Diana of Versailles,” was last seen and photographed by Robert Ballard in 1986, just one year after he discovered the famous shipwreck.
“It was like looking for a needle in a haystack so rediscovering it this year was a breakthrough,” Titanic researcher James Penca told the BBC.
In the ship's heyday, the statue was the centerpiece of the first-class lounge, Penca said.
But as it sank, the ship broke in two, a shocking scene captured in Cameron's landmark film, which resulted in the opening of the lounge.
“Amid the chaos and destruction, Diana was stripped of her cloak and fell into the darkness of the wreckage,” Penca said.
The company has salvaged thousands of items from the site and plans to return next year to retrieve more artifacts, including the statue.
“This was a work of art that should have been seen and appreciated,” Penca said, “and now this beautiful piece of art is at the bottom of the ocean … in total darkness, where it has been for 112 years.”
“Bringing Diana back and letting people see it for themselves, inspiring the love of its value, of history, of diving, of conservation, of shipwrecks, of sculpture – it can never be left on the ocean floor.”
