The preservation of more than 6,000 objects recovered from the site of the wreckage of the Titanic requires the skills of curators specialised in a wide variety of materials. Prolonged exposure to the harsh conditions deep below the water’s surface – such as reactive oxygen species, darkness, and extreme pressures – changes the integrity and even the composition of every object. Without effective steps to stabilise them, many would erode once brought to the surface. For example, after a long stay under water, cast iron objects handled without caution can explode when exposed to air. Certain materials, like leather and wood, are changed so much the long interaction with salts, high pressure, and glacial temperatures that these extreme conditions become necessary for them to remain intact.

Combining electrolysis, chemical baths, and intuition, the curators extract corrosive minerals from each object – such as salt and sulphur – in order to prepare them for study and exhibition.
Even as you read this, the Titanic is being slowly eaten away by iron-consuming microbes. The preservation of objects is the best way to guard the memory and history of the more that 2,200 passengers and crewmembers. If the objects are not recovered in the near future, some of the most delicate among them will disintegrate and be dispersed at the bottom of the ocean.

Object preservation: small miracles

It was unavoidable that the objects in the Titanic would degrade and decompose on contact with air. Removing them from the dark, icy ocean would disturb the equilibrium that protected them. So, it was necessary to establish a new equilibrium, this time in air. And to do that, process the objects according to their individual characteristics: metal, porcelain, ivory, leather, paper, etc.

Electricité de France (EDF) Foundation, among other preservation laboratories, responded to this challenge. For Noël Lacoudre and his "Object Healers" team, specialists in electrochemistry and conservators from the EDF laboratory in Saint-Denis, the challenge was not met easily: at the time, no one had previously processed objects resting in deep parts of the ocean. During the treatment of more than 1,800 objects found around the Titanic wreckage, the crew of Ifremer’s Nautile was able to perfect an innovative technique that uses electrophoresis for stabilising leathers and paper.

Here are several images from the book, Les Objets du Titanic, illustrating the long process that brought objects from the bottom of the sea to the exhibition display case: Start the slide show

* Les Objects du Titanic : La Memoire des Abîmes [The Objects of the Titanic: Memories in Darkness], Jacques Montluçon and Noël Lacoudre, Hermé JFG: 1989.