HOT NEWS !

By Bruce C. Steele - Take5

As I enter the newly opened Titanic museum, I'm handed a boarding pass.

The good news is I've been assigned the identity of Isidor Straus, the wealthy founder of Macy's department store. He and his wife, Ida, stayed in one of the best first-class suites on the ship.

It's the room where Jack draws a nude portrait of Rose in James Cameron's movie. And it's faithfully reproduced on the second floor of the museum.

The bad news is I'm one of the 1,517 people who perished when the ship hit an iceberg and sank at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912. The outside of “Titanic: The World's Largest Museum Attraction,” as it's called, is a huge, half-scale reproduction of the front half of the ship, apparently about to sail across Parkway, Pigeon Forge's main drag.

But beyond the goofball exterior is a remarkably informative, entertaining and, yes, respectful museum. In addition to its treasure trove of authentic artifacts — a deck chair, Mrs. Astor's actual life jacket, a crew member's penknife — it recounts in detail the lives of dozens of the ship's passengers who might otherwise have been forgotten.

“I like to say whether you're 5 or 95, you're going to enjoy this experience and how it pays tribute to those who were on board,” said John Joslyn, who owns and created the attraction with his wife, Mary Kellogg. “It tells their story.”

The research is impressive — and unique, since much of it is driven by the artifacts on hand.

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By Peter Hutchison - Telegraph.co.uk

A Second World War fighter plane buried under sand on a Welsh beach for 65 years is to be recovered and placed in a museum under a new plan.

Conservationists are in discussions with museums over hosting the United States Army Air Force fighter thought to be the oldest surviving aircraft of its type.

The Lockheed-P38 Lighting, known as the Maid of Harlech, crashed on the Gwynedd coast in 1942 when its engines cut out while taking part in secret training exercises.

The pilot, Second Lieutenant Robert Elliot, walked away from the crash uninjured but was reported missing in action three months later during a campaign in Tunisia.

In 2007 shifting sands revealed the plane for the first time in decades and the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) set about protecting it.

Ric Gillespie, leading the TIGHAR team hoping to secure enough funding to pull the plane from the sand, said: “It’s one on the most significant WWII-related archaeological discoveries in recent history. Nature has done a good job hiding the wreck.”

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By Dina Indrasafitri - The Jakarta Post

The auction of centuries-old artifacts recently discovered on the bottom of Indonesia’s ocean floor opened Wednesday with the attendance of government officials, including two ministers and a pack of journalists — and not a single bidder.

The seats saved for bidders were left empty, forcing the organizer of the auction to call it a day only minutes after the gavel was banged.

“There was an auction, but since there were no bidders, it was instantly closed,” said Sudirman Saad, the secretary-general for the recovery and usage of precious goods in sunken ships.

According to him, the offer to join the auction had been open until 12 a.m., or two hours before the auction, but no registrations had been made. Thus, he said, the auction was recorded as “being conducted, but without any bidders”.

More than 271,000 historical objects discovered in Cirebon waters in West Java were up for auction.

The artifacts were excavated from the ruins of a ship in 2005. The value of the retrieved objects was estimated at US$80 million.

The artifacts included a golden sword with Arabic inscriptions, a large vase from the 10th century Liao dynasty, rock crystals and a 32-centimeter bronze mirror.

Interested bidders were obliged to deposit 20 percent ($16 million) of the value of the auctioned goods.

Maritime and Fisheries Minister Fadel Muhammad, who is also the acting chairman of the National Committee for the Recovery and Usage of Precious Goods in Sunken Ships, said it might take weeks or months before the committee could decide what they would do next.

“We will have a meeting with committee members and then decide what to do. Of course we will also consult with the President,” he said after the auction closed.

The auction has drawn criticism from academics and history buffs as well as the royal family of the Cirebon Sultanate.

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By Ford Cochran - Natgeo Newswatch

A new exhibition traces the life, loves, and death of Cleopatra, Egypt's final pharaoh and one of history's most compelling and enigmatic figures.

"Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt," which opens June 5 at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute, explores what we know about the woman who descended from one of Alexander the Great's generals, tried to restore the might Egypt had known under some of its most powerful dynasties, saw her kingdom conquered by the Roman Empire, and enraptured both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.

The exhibition also raises an enduring mystery: Where are Cleopatra and Mark Antony buried ?

Organized by National Geographic and Arts and Exhibitions International, with cooperation from the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities and the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology, the project reunites the team behind the extraordinarily popular "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs."

Tickets for Cleopatra go on sale today to the general public.

By Erwida Maulia - The Jakarta Post

Over 12,400 items of Chinese ceramics believed to originate from the Ming dynasty era have been secured from a ship wreck in Belanakan waters in Subang, West Java.

The ceramics have been gathered during the past month of diving operation around and into the wreck of 50 m x 20 m ship that lies 58 meters under the surface of Java Sea.

White ceramic plates, bowls and vases with blue motives, mostly floral, construct most found items; 40 percent of which are still in good condition.

"It is predicted to be a cargo ship sunken somewhere in 1,600s... Archaeologists believe, from the blue motives of the white ceramics, that they originate from the Ming dynasty," Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry's director general for surveillance and control, Aji Sularso, said aboard a patrol ship on Wednesday after surveying the lifting of the ceramics 48 miles off the coast of Belanakan.

"Given the large size of the cargo, we predict that we need to dive for a year to secure all of its precious loads, which may amount to 1 million pieces; larger than the number of items secured from the shipwreck in Cirebon."

Aji said he expected to find gold bars among the loads so as to cover the survey and lifting costs of the artifacts, predicted to exceed US$10 million, the total costs needed to secure loads of the Cirebon shipwreck offered in a bid also on Wednesday in Jakarta.

The presence of the shipwreck along with its loads in Belanakan waters was confirmed in a survey conducted between July and October last year, following some local fishermen's finding of ceramics in their fish nets.

The lifting of the artifacts, Aji said, began in early April, with 22 professional divers specially hired to secure the precious loads from the shipwreck and brought them to the surface.

The Indonesian government, through the national committee for shipwreck loads, is partnering with local private firm PT Comexindo to conduct the survey, as well as to secure and store the precious loads.

From BBC News

University of Ulster divers have been passing on their expertise to maritime archaeologists in the historic Egyptian port of Alexandria.

Staff from the UU's maritime archaeology centre conducted a 10-day training workshop for 15 archaeologists from north and east Africa who wanted an insight into the challenges of working underwater.

During their stay the UU divers were granted a rare opportunity to explore the underwater remains of the famous Pharos lighthouse - one of the wonders of the ancient world.

Work on the great lighthouse began in 290 BC and when it was completed 20 years later, it was the first lighthouse in the world and the tallest building in existence with the exception of the Great Pyramid.

The course, hosted by Alexandria University's new Centre for Maritime Archaeology and Underwater Heritage (CMA), involved all aspects of survey, documentation and management of archaeological sites and artefacts from maritime environments and enabled students to gain practical experience by diving in Alexandria's eastern harbour.

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By Ulma Haryanto - Jakarta Globe

Going once, going twice, fail.

The highly anticipated — at least locally — auction of a 10th-century treasure trove valued at around $80 million flopped on Wednesday when not a single bidder bothered to show up.

Embarrassingly for local officials, the auctioneer was forced to abandon the auction at the Ministry of Fisheries in Central Jakarta just five minutes after it opened.

Adi Agung Tirtamarta, chief executive officer of PT Paradigma Putra Sejathera, the local partner of Belgian treasurer hunter Luc Heymans, said the failure indicated that it was clearly time for the government to revise its regulation requiring potential bidders to first pay a hefty deposit of $16 million, or 20 percent of the reserve price of $80 million.

Adi said the deposit requirement was unique to Indonesia.

The gems, crystal ware, gold and porcelain were salvaged from an unidentified wreck off Cirebon, West Java, in 2004.

From Tampa Bay Business Journal

Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. renewed it $5 million revolving credit facility with Fifth Third Bank.

The line of credit initially is secured by about 29,000 numismatic coins recovered by the company from the SS Republic shipwreck, a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said. The number of coins held as collateral will be reduced over the term by the amount of coins sold by Odyssey Marine, the filing said.

Odyssey Marine, a Tampa company that explores and recovers deep-ocean shipwrecks worldwide, said it would use the credit line to fund ongoing operations.

Odyssey Marine initially received a two-year, $5 million credit facility from Fifth Third Bank in February 2008. A 90-day extension was granted until May 7, 2010, the SEC filing said.

The renewed credit facility has a floating interest rate equal to the prime rate plus 1.5 percent, requires monthly payments of interest only and is due in full April 23, 2011, the filing said.

The company is required to pay the bank an unused line fee equal to one-half percent per year on the unused portion of the credit line.

The coins used as collateral will be held by a custodian for the security of the bank, and the borrowing base will be equal to 40 percent of the eligible coin inventory valued on a rolling 12-month wholesale average value, the filing said.