Archaeological value of Titanic artifacts

Hi and welcome to the forum Eugene!
Apologies for the delayed response.


Many of the Titanic artifacts are of common everyday objects (though not all mind you- there were many things specifically made for the ship). The monetary value attributed to something though does not represent its archaeological value. For example a gold treasure may go for tens times more than that of an ancient ceramic object but that doesn't mean the archaeological value (i.e. What said object can tell us about the people who made it etc) of the gold treasure is ten times of the ceramic object.


However the Titanic will always hold a certain appeal and fascination in popular public imagination and objects from the ship are certainly lucrative (from the people selling such objects to the museums buying them to draw in new crowds to even just the private collectors who are fascinated with the ship or like the status/kudos value of owning something from it etc...There are many reasons why people buy Titanic artifacts!).

For me personally I kind of get the fascination with the ship. There are many famous shipwrecks but is there a single ship more famous out there than that of the Titanic?

I don't know what its fame was like pre-1987 however at least from the perspective of those who have invested in its artifacts, it will be important to them that the shipwreck remains popular (as that is what the price of so many of its artifacts is based on).

I think the ship is more than famous for what it is though (The Titanic)...For example it summed up so many feelings, fashions and ideas of the era as a whole! From the lives of those who worked in the smog-filled steelworks constructing the ship etc, the etiquette standards required of upper class servants, butlers & maids, the hopes and dreams of working class people traveling to new shores, the artistry and craftsmanship of woodwork inside the ship, the lives of the aristocracy to even the fashions in diet at the turn of the 20th century and so much more...
There is so much about life back then that the Titanic helps to shed light on. I don't have any particular affinity for the Titanic but I have to say even I have found my interest & imagination being fired up in all sorts of ways because of things the Titanic helped shed light on.

1. "So it is public demand and mass fascination that caused so high monetary value of Titanic artifacts (regardless of their actual scientific value)?"

Pretty much.

2. "Speaking scientifically, did we learn something particularly important about the Titanic people and the ship herself through those artifacts?"

Yes there have been many things that which would have either been overlooked or forgotten about or which we wouldn't have known about at all. For example the ships steel & welding etc was found to be of a very sub-standard quality. If the wreck had not been discovered (and parts of it dredged up from the depths etc) we would have never known this for certain as while there were suspicions about stuff like this, until concrete evidence arose it would have only remained a theory (that the high pressure schedules the ships builders were working under caused them to cut all manner of corners in the most fundamental aspects of its design and construction).

It was not one single element that caused the fabled ship to sink but many factors (a "perfect storm" if you will) and many of these factors have only been proven (or discovered) since the discovery of the wreck etc.

3. "All those plates, dishes and other kitchenware, gloves and glasses, watches, door knobs, etc., etc... What can we learn (scientifically) from them? What can they tell us about the people or circumstances of the disaster?"

Many of the objects can't tell us that much about the circumstances of the disaster but they certainly altogether can build up a much better picture about that slice in time. For example the budgeting allotted to different aspects of the ship can be filled out via the inspection of more everyday objects ("Where were the budgeting priorities of the ship?"). They also build up pictures of the lives of those on-board the ship.

And lets be honest- if the ship hadn't had such a high casualty rate during the disaster, would it have been such a memorable shipping disaster? To be sure it would still have been famous but had it not been for the casualty rate and the individual plights and stories of those on-board etc, the wreck would never have sustained and captured so much public imagination over the years.

Archaeology is never going to be a dry science. It is not simply about understanding things like certain disastrous events which happened in the past happened the way they did etc. A big part of archaeology and history is about understanding ourselves and how society has changed over the years. Where do we come from? What were we like in the past? Why is society the way it is now? How similar was society in the past to how it is now? What is the "right" way to live? Based on the evidence, where is society heading now? Etc.

If you don't understand the humanity you will struggle to understand the human history. The shipwreck was a disaster which happened because of a great deal of human error and everyday objects help shed light on the lives and the mentality of people in the past. For example we know society was very classist back then (and who ended up dying and in what numbers and why etc, was affected a lot by this), but how classist was it really?
(That sort of thing)

PS: Mrs. Administrator ^_^