New images of the Titanic were released Monday, capturing sights of a long-lost statue of a goddess and the degradation of the most famous shipwreck in history.
A recent expedition by the RMS Titanic, Inc., an organization dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Titanic, spent 20 days at the wreck site this summer to map the sunken ship and take more than 2 million images and video, according to the team.
During this expedition, they discovered a statue known as “Diana of Versailles,” a 2-foot-tall bronze statuette of Diana, the ancient Roman goddess of wild animals and the hunt. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Diana’s name was akin to the Latin words for “sky” and “daylight.”
The RMS Titanic, Inc. team said Diana served as the centerpiece of the First Class Lounge, which was torn open as the Titanic sank in 1912. So, while Diana may have embodied the sky and daylight, she found her resting place in the darkness of the ocean floor.
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The statue was only spotted over 70 years later in 1986, but was lost once again until the latest RMS Titanic, Inc. expedition. Captured by Marine Imaging Technologies, the images of Diana showcase the intricate detail of the statue.
While the rediscovery of Diana was an exciting find during the expedition, the team also found over 100 years of decay and degradation on the Titanic.
One of which involved the bow, or front, of the ship. What was once a “miraculously” intact railing, was now missing a 15-foot-long section on the port side, the expedition team said.
With their partners in 3D at Depth, they then reviewed multibeam imagery of the bow and determined the railing had fallen off in one piece and was lying on the sea floor below.
“We are saddened by this loss and the inevitable decay of the Ship and the debris,” RMS Titanic, Inc. said. “Over the course of the next few weeks and months, we will conduct a more thorough review of Titanic’s condition and her changes over time.”
WATCH: NEWLY RELEASED TITANIC VIDEO FROM 1986 SHOWS UNPRECEDENTED LOOK AT ICONIC SHIPWRECK
“Although Titanic’s collapse is inevitable, this evidence strengthens our mission to preserve and document what we can before it is too late,” they added.
The RMS Titanic sank in April 1912, after it struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean. According to NOAA, most of the ship rests 12,000 feet below sea level and about 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
Original article source: See it: Lost Titanic statue discovered in latest expedition
Source Agencies
