Lost necklace found in Titanic wreckage 111 years later
Lost necklace found in Titanic wreckage 111 years later
Remember the huge, sparkling, very valuable necklace that Rose threw into the ocean at the end of Titanic? Well it's real - kind of - and it's been found.
Okay, the real necklace doesn't feature a whopping great blue diamond, but it's definitely both big and pricey as it's made from the tooth of a Megalodon shark, and adorned with gold jewellery.
Much like the necklace in the film, the real accessory belonged to a passenger on board the Titanic when it sank to the bottom of the Atlantic in 1912.
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For 111 years the necklace had been lost to the wreckage, never worn or seen, but thanks to advancements in technology and the largest underwater scanning project in history, it's now been found.
Images of the necklace have been shared by Guernsey-based firm Magellan, which used two submarines to capture 700,000 images of the shipwreck and made them into a moving scan.
Among the structure of the ship, the furniture and the other debris now lying at the bottom of the ocean, the images revealed the sharp point of the tooth that forms the main focus of the necklace.
Richard Parkinson, the CEO of Magellan, described the find as 'astonishing, beautiful and breathtaking', ITV reports.
"What is not widely understood is that the Titanic is in two parts and there's a three-square-mile debris field between the bow and the stern," he continued. "The team mapped the field in such detail that we could pick out those details."
Unfortunately, the necklace couldn't be removed from the wreck for closer inspection due to an agreement between the UK and the US which prevents the public from removing artefacts from the site.
However, Magellan is now hoping to track down the family who are the rightful owners of the jewellery with the help of artificial intelligence.
AI is set to analyse footage of the Titanic's 2,200 passengers boarding the ship with a focus on facial recognition and the clothes that they were wearing, in the hopes of identifying the owner.
After getting a close-up look at the area where the Titanic went under, Jan Eliassen, who captained the MV Freja ship from which the scans were taken, admitted it was an eye-opening experience.
"I don't think that one can really understand how that would have felt in the darkness of night when the ship you were on is sinking underneath you and entering the water," he said.
Topics: Fashion, Science, TV and Film, Titanic
Emily Brown