A large number of visitors have visited an exhibition over the past days at a Singapore museum featuring artifacts from the ship Titanic, the luxury passenger liner that sank on her maiden voyage 100 years ago, the museum said.
Over 11,000 visited Titanic: The Artifact Exhition during the three-day Easter weekend, said the Marina Bay Sands ArtScience Museum. Still many are coming to have a view of the exhibition on Monday and Tuesday, museum staff said.
Titanic was the largest ship at the time it was built but it sank to bottom of the Atlantic after hitting an iceberg in the night of April 14, 1912 during its maiden voyage. The ship left its shipyard at Southampton on April 10, 1912, with many of the world's wealthiest and most well-known names on board.
The cups, boots, glasses, jewellery and other artifacts from the wreck give visitors insights into the shipwreck. It was believed to be carrying 2,228 people and only 705 survived.
"The night of April 14, 1912 is clear and bitterly cold. Up in the crow's nest, lookouts Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee scan the unusually calm sea," said an explanatory note of the exhibition.
RMS Titanic, Inc., the only company permitted by law to recover objects from the wreck of the Titanic, has conducted eight research and recovery expeditions to the Titanic, bringing above the water more than 5,500 artifacts.
Some of the artifacts were put in the lower galleries of the Marina Bay Sands ArtScience Museum as part of an exhibition aimed to re-create an experience similar to what it might have been like for the passengers a century ago, including the first and third class cabins that were reconstructed with the smell and the sound effects.
A segment of the staircase was also recreated to give visitors a glimpse of the luxurious passenger liner.
"The strong visitation to the exhibition over the three day weekend illustrates the global build up in interest of the event, evidenced by many recent television documentaries, magazine features and film releases," said Nick Dixon, executive director of the museum.
Visitors to the exhibition can dress up in Edwardian themed costumes and have their photos taken at the grand staircase. They can also view documentaries on the exploration of the wreck site.
The museum commemorated the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic with the release of 2,228 Kong Ming lanterns on Tuesday evening, signifying the number of passengers aboard the ship.
It will be the beginning of a three-week long commemoration that allows visitors to experience various aspects of the Titanic. The exhibition will come to a close on April 29 with a string ensemble performing melodies that were played aboard the Titanic.
The museum said the exhibition designed to tell the human stories of the ship's maiden voyage has seen more than 25 million tickets sold at some of the museums around the world.
