Is this the iceberg that sank the Titanic? Newly dug image offers fascinating clue to 1912 tragedy that killed 1,522

A newly excavated photo of the iceberg that may have sunk the Titanic has come to light 112 years after the disaster.

The black and white photo was taken by an undertaker working on the body recovery ship that arrived at the wreck site in the wake of the sinking.

It is now coming up for sale at Henry Aldridge & Son Auctioneers of Devizes, Wiltshire, with an estimate of £4,000 to £7,000.

It shows a large glacier oddly shaped like an elephant above the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean.

It was taken two days after the luxury liner hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank, killing 1,522 people.

It was taken two days after the luxury liner hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank, killing 1,522 people

The photographer, believed to be undertaker John Snow Jr., later put the snap in a cardboard holder and wrote simply “Titanitic”.

Snow’s father ran a funeral home in Nova Scotia, and when news of the tragedy broke, he and his staff of embalmers were called to Halifax.

They boarded the cable-laying ship Mackay-Bennett, which was loaded with 100 coffins and 100 tons of ice to preserve the bodies.

They left for the wreck site 800 miles away and arrived four hours later on April 17, 1912.

The crew began their grim task the next morning. In total, they recovered 306 bodies from the sea.

Those identified as first class passengers were embalmed on the ship and placed in coffins. These included the bodies of John Jacob Astor IV, the richest man on board, and Isidor Straus, owner of Macy’s department store.

Second class passengers were embalmed and wrapped in canvas. About 116 third class passengers and crew were buried at sea.

The ship returned to Halifax seven days later with 190 Titanic victims.

The 5-inch by 3-inch image of the iceberg was passed down through the Snow family until it was acquired by a collector of Titanic memorabilia about 30 years ago.

Captain Edward John Smith, captain of the RMS Titanic, who went down with the ship. The picture is now for sale at Henry Aldridge & Son Auctioneers of Devizes, Wiltshire, with an estimate of £4,000 to £7,000

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: ‘No one can say for sure that this was THE iceberg that sank the Titanic.

“But what we can say is that after the salvage ship Carpathia, the Mackay-Bennett was one of the first ships to reach the wreck and that the undertaker on board decided to take a picture of this iceberg.”

‘He must have had his reasons for taking a picture of this iceberg.

‘He subtitled it Titanic and set it up for posterity.

‘It has not been sold before and was acquired directly from Mr Snow’s family by our seller in the early 1990s.

‘It is an extremely rare photograph and we are sure it will attract a lot of interest.’

The ‘unsinkable’ Titanic was hurtling through an ice field in the North Atlantic when it struck an iceberg at 22.20 on 14 April 1912.

Lookout Fred Fleet struggled to spot the glacier at first because the water was so calm that no waves broke at the base of it, a telltale sign of one.

The liner sank at 02:20 on 15 April.

A photograph of another iceberg, which could also have been the one Titanic struck on the night of April 14, 1912, has been seen before.

It was one taken by a crew member on the Minia, another body recovery ship that arrived at the scene on April 22 – a week later.

And in 2020, a photo of an iceberg taken two days before the tragedy by the captain of a passing passenger ship was sold at auction.

Captain W. Wood was on the SS Etonian and he noted the geographical coordinates of the glacier, which were almost the same when the Titanic floated 40 hours later.

The latest picture is to be sold on April 27th in Devizes.