Maxine Harrison
The tragic sinking of the Titanic continues to fascinate the world over a century on.
The magnificent ship sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic ocean, resulting in the deaths of around 1,500 people.
There has been success in venturing to the wreckage of the Titanic, which lies in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, and the things discovered so far highlight what life was like at the time of the ship sinking in 1912.
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There have been several items discovered around the ship wreckage, including musical instruments, clothes, and all manner of random fragments of daily life.
However, among the most surprising and chilling discovery was shoes - leading many to question why this is the case.
While shoes alone are of course not beyond the ordinary to discover among the wreckage - people wear shoes, right? - the more eerie discovering was the fact that the shoes were almost always found in pairs. It was hardly ever isolated shoes found.
The clothing items were so prevalent at the wreckage because the material used to make the shoes mainly consisted of leather.
They also contained a lot of tannic acid, which had preserved them at the bottom of the ocean. In fact, you may be surprised to learn that many of these shoes have in fact preserved more than the victims’ bodies of the tragic incident.
So why are the shoes from the wreckage found in pairs?
Well, the shoes themselves survived as the tannins in the leather made them unappealing to the life at the bottom of the ocean and therefore eroded more slowly.
In comparison, animals living at the bottom of the ocean, combined with the water itself, would have made short work of human remains.
One study found that placing a pig carcass roughly the same size as a human on the seabed resulted in it reduced to bones in as little as four days. The bones were totally gone after around six months.
So it makes sense that more than 100 years ago that there are no human remains left.
Hardy leather in these pairs of shoes also meant that they were able to resist the ravages of time better long after the person that occupied them was completely gone. This highlights how durable the leather was.
This is why both pairs of the shoes were often found in the Titanic wreckage, and makes the shoes the last vestiges of the Titanic boarders who tragically lost their life in the disaster.