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A modern crocodile skin bag and small perfume bottles that still give off a powerful aroma are just some of the items recovered from the Titanic, the world’s most famous shipwreck.

The exact location of the warehouse is where these items are kept well-kept privacy to prevent theft. The only thing we can say is that it is located somewhere in the city Atlanticin Georgia, United States.

The BBC had the rare opportunity to explore the facilities of this warehouse and discover the stories behind some of these items.

The Titanic leaves Belfast for sea trials in 1912.

The story behind the bag

“It’s a really beautiful little bag,” said Tomasina Ray, director of collections at RMS Titanic Incthe American company that recovered these items.

The company is supposed to save the ship and over the years it has recovered 5,500 items from the wreck sitethat happened between the night of the 14th and the early morning of April 15, 1912.

The bag, made of crocodile skin, has lived for decades in the depths of the The North Atlantic. It also preserves the delicate objects inside, which reveal details about the life of its owner, a named third class passenger Marian Meanwell.

“She was a 63-year-old miller,” Tomasina said. “He was traveling to the United States to be with his daughter, who was recently widowed.

Among the memorabilia was a long-ago photograph, believed to be of Marian Meanwell’s mother.

There were also documents the traveler needed for her new life in the United States, including a handwritten reference letter from her previous tenant in London.

“We have always considered Miss Meanwell to be a good tenant and punctual in paying. “

She was also inside the bag medical examination cardwhich required all third class passengers to prove that they were not carrying illnesses to United States. However, this document with water shows a tragic twist of fate.

Marian Meanwell had a reserve in the Moralanother company’s vessel White Star Line. But she did not sail, so Majestic is left out of the chart and her ticket shows that she was transferred to the Titanic, where she became one of the 1,500 people lost their lives in the shipwreck.

“It’s really important to be able to tell your story and have these materials,” Tomasina said. “Otherwise, she’d just be another name on the list.”

Artifacts belonging to the survivors were also recovered from the depths.

Tomasina opens a plastic container and a sickly sweet smell fills the air. “It’s very powerful,” he admits.

In the warehouse there are small bottles of perfume. They are sealed, but their strong atmosphere escapes, even after decades on the seabed.

“On board was a perfume salesman who had more than 90 vials of this perfume,” explained Tomasina. He was called Adolphe Saalfeld and he was traveling as a second class passenger.

Saalfeld was one of the 700 people survived. But because women and children had priority at the time of the to emptysome people who got away from the ship were left in trouble.

“He was already dead when we found this,” Tomasina said. “But I understand that he lived with some guilt, survivor’s guilt“.

The collection also includes a a full bottle of champagnewhich holds the drink inside and a cork on top.

“Maybe some water got through the cork when it was being compressed and equalized the pressure. Then he stayed at the bottom of the ocean,” says Tomasina.

When The Titanic sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg.the ship broke apart and everything inside was scattered and created a large area of ​​debris.

“There are many bottles at the bottom of the ocean and also many pots and kitchen vans, because the titanic broke down around one of the kitchens” said Tomasina.

There were thousands of bottles of champagne on board. The owner of the liner wanted his first class passengers to experience the ultimate in opulence, with exciting surroundings and the best food and drink.

“It looked like a floating palace and the Titanic was supposed to be the most luxurious liner“Adds Tomasina. “So champagne, a gym, all these facilities and these wonderful things for travelers would have been very important to them.”

When he hit the iceberg, The Titanic was on its first voyage from Southampton, a port city in the south of the United Kingdom, to the United States..

The ship had advanced safety features at the time and was said to be unsinkable.

Tomasina shows us some of the ship’s shingles, thick pieces of metal that held the large steel plates together. It is estimated that there were over three million clovers.

“When the Titanic sank, There was a theory that they may have used poor quality materials and that was what made it sink faster,” explained Tomasina.

Some of these rivets were inspected for inconsistencies.

“It had a high concentration of slag, which is a glass-like substance that makes them a little sweeter in the cold,” he said.

“If those rivets had been brittle and one of the clover heads had come out more easily, it might have allowed the seam to open where the iceberg hit and make it more more than it would have been.”

Tomasina says there is still much to learn about exactly how the ship sank.

“We can help investigate the theories, so we’re very happy to contribute to the science and history behind them.”

Life on board the Titanic differed according to social classeven in the cups and plates in which they drank and ate.

A white third class mug was simple and sturdy, with a bright red White Star logo. A second class plate had a very blue floral decoration and it looked a little more elegant. However, a first class plate was made of a more delicate porcelain. It had a golden border, and under the light, an intricate garland pattern could be seen.

“That pattern would be colored, but since it was set on the enamel it could be washed away,” says Tomasina.

Wealthy first class passengers received cash service for their mealsbut in the third class the story was different.

“Third class passengers would probably have handled the ships themselves. Of course, it had to be much more stable and more manageable, with much more roughness than the other boards,” explained Tomasina.

In 1944, the US court allowed RMS Titanic Inc to be the only company legally authorized to retrieve materials from the site. But he must do so under strict conditions: the items must always stay together, they cannot be sold separately and they must be stored correctly.

So far, all materials have been collected from the debris field. But the company recently sparked controversy by announcing that it wanted to retrieve an item from the ship itself: the Marconi radio equipment that broadcast the Titanic’s distress calls on the night of its sinking.

Some believe that the wreck is a grave and should be left alone.

“The Titanic is something we want to honor,” Tomasina replied. “We want to make sure to preserve memorybecause not everyone can go down to the Titanic and we want to be able to bring that to the public.”

More shelf space may be needed in this secret warehouse soon.

The company’s last visit to the site involved taking millions of pictures of the wreck to create a detailed 3D scan.

In addition to examining the current location of Marconi’s radio room, the team has also identified items among the debris that they want to recover in future divers.

Who knows what they will find and what untold stories each article will tell about the Titanic and its passengers.

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