James Cameron backs bid for Titanic artifacts
Posted on NOV 26, 2018
Director James Cameron and Titanic discoverer Robert Ballard are supporting a bid by a group of British museums to purchase 5,500 artifacts from the tragically sunken ship.
The campaign aims to raise $20 million to enable to Royal Museums Greenwich, National Museums Northern Ireland, Titanic Belfast, and Titanic Foundation Limited to buy the artifacts from RMS Titanic, Inc., a privately-owned American company that unearthed the items. The National Geographic Society has promised $500,000 towards the purchase.
Items in the collection include a section of the ship's hull and a bronze cherub that once decorated the ocean liner's grand staircase. The items were recovered during seven expeditions to the wreck site between 1987 and 2004.
"It's an incredible piece of history, an object lesson about human hubris," said Cameron, who completed several expeditions of his own leading up to his 1997 film Titanic. "If it gets sold into private hands, it disappears from the public eye. It would be broken up and could never be reassembled."
The bid was originally announced at the Titanic Belfast location, where the ship was designed, built, and launched. Ballard said the campaign is "the only viable option to retain the integrity" of the artifacts, and expressed his belief that the collection should be returned to the ship's starting point
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