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Message: [QUOTE="Jeff Kelley, post: 229130, member: 202087"] “Should we have reverence for an auto wreck because people died in it? Maybe while their remains are still inside, but once they've been removed, whether by the hand of man or the forces of nature, it's just scrap metal.” This is a compelling line of thought. In some cases, sunken submarines are sealed shut and effectively turned into underwater tombs - those are more clearly delineated as gravesites. But sunken ships are a more difficult question. Sunken ships have been searched (and artifacts recovered) for centuries for archeological and financial reasons. I believe that it is the mystique of the Titanic that makes that particular ship more controversial. Back to Bob’s question, though… A sunken ship, like a car wreck, was not meant to be a final resting place, a gravesite, or a tomb. In the case of the Titanic, people died as the result of an accident. The analogy of the car wreck is a very good one. Once the bodies are removed the wreckage becomes scrap metal and is discarded or (hopefully) recycled. Also, consider the steel from the World Trade Center. Most of it was shipped to India and China for re-use. The car you drive today or the soup can you open tonight might contain metal from that building. In the case of the Titanic, no one is pushing for recycling of the materials, and I would suggest that preservation in a museum of selected artifacts is an even more fitting fate than reincarnation as car parts and soup cans. And while the artifacts might in some cases have been owned by an individual, they were not there as part of a burial rite. In any case, there are many good arguments on both sides of the salvaging issue, and I am confident that they will never be reconciled. People will have to agree to disagree. One other certainty…the Titanic will continue to deteriorate and will eventually collapse upon itself, destroying most if not all of what artifacts remain. [/QUOTE]

Verification: In which year did the Titanic sail?