Feat of Endurance: Mensun Bound's search for Shackleton's lost Antarctic ship

Works of art on the seabed, skulls gaping up through the sediment, Tudor gold and Ming china is all in a day's work for the marine archaeologist Mensun Bound, the first person to see Shackleton's Endurance since it sank over a century ago

The stern of the wreck of Endurance found at a depth of 3,008 metres in the Weddell Sea, approximately four miles south of the position originally recorded by Captain Worsley. Picture: Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust

Marine archaeologist Mensun Bound has witnessed great works of art lying on the seabed, chests overflowing with treasure, and “skulls gaping up at me through the sediment”.

He remembers finding a gold coin from the wreck of the Tudor warship Mary Rose, and slabs of gold mixed with Ming porcelain from a shipwreck off the east African coast.