Treasures from Titanic's rescue ship to visit

Star Tribune

Last update: March 31, 2009 - 9:38 PM

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Artifacts from the ship that responded to the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 will make their worldwide debut at the Science Museum of Minnesota in June, officials for the St. Paul museum announced Tuesday.

The items are from the RMS Carpathia, the vessel that came to the rescue of the Titanic's many hundreds of passengers and crew in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic.

PART OF THE EXHIBIT: The artifacts will appear as part of the Science Museum's "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition," which opens June 12. Tickets go on sale April 14, 97 years to the day that the Titanic struck an iceberg and later sank.

SHIP'S ROLE: The Carpathia was 58 miles from the Titanic when its crew received the distress call and raced to help. It arrived after the Titanic had foundered, but the crew rescued the 705 survivors of the disaster and carried them to their New York destination. More than 1,500 people aboard the Titanic died.

The Carpathia later returned to transatlantic service and was sunk by a German torpedo during World War I. Her wreckage was discovered in September 1999, about 185 miles off the southwestern coast of England.

The artifacts will be displayed in a new Rescue Gallery within the Titanic exhibition. The gallery will contain nearly half of all artifacts recovered from the ship's wreck site. In addition, the gallery will highlight the stories that led to Carpathia's moniker "The Ship of Widows."

THE DISPLAY INCLUDES:

• A flask, one of only five personal items found during recovery efforts.

• A porthole, which weighs more than 50 pounds and has its original glass and wood still intact.

• A tiny cosmetics jar from the United Kingdom's Boots Pharmacy. Measuring 3 inches tall, it was recovered with its contents still intact.

For more information on tickets, call 651-221-9444 or visit www.smm.org.

PAUL WALSH

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