Divers have recovered artefacts from the Titanic’s sister ship, the Britannic, for the first time since the ocean liner sank in the Aegean Sea more than a century ago after striking a mine during the First World War.
The Culture Ministry in Greece said an 11-member deep-sea diving team conducted a weeklong operation in May to recover artefacts including the ship’s bell and the port-side navigation light.
The White Star Line’s Britannic, launched in 1914, was designed as a luxury cruise liner, but was requisitioned as a hospital ship during the First World War.
It was heading toward the island of Lemnos when it struck a mine and sank off the island of Kea, about 75 kilometres (45 miles) southeast of Athens, on November 21 1916.
The vessel, the largest hospital ship at the time, sank in less than an hour. Thirty of the more than 1,060 people on board died when the lifeboats they were in were struck by the ship’s still turning propellers.
The wreck lies at a depth of 120 metres (nearly 400 feet), making it accessible only to technical divers.
The dive team used closed-circuit rebreather equipment in a recovery operation organised by British historian Simon Mills, founder of the Britannic Foundation, the Culture Ministry said.
Conditions on the wreck were particularly tough because of currents and low visibility, the ministry said.
Among the items raised to the surface were artefacts reflecting both the ship’s utilitarian role and its luxurious design: the lookout bell, the navigation lamp, silver-plated first-class trays, ceramic tiles from a Turkish bath, a pair of passenger binoculars and a porcelain sink from second-class cabins.
The artefacts are now undergoing conservation in the Greek capital Athens and will be included in the permanent collection of a new Museum of Underwater Antiquities under development at the port of Piraeus.
The museum will feature a dedicated First World War section, with the items from the Britannic as a centrepiece.
