100-Year-Old Photo Negatives Were Found In An Antarctic Hut

Antarctic Heritage TrustErnest Shackleton's chief scientist for the Ross Sea Party, Alexander Stevens, is seen on the deck of the Aurora in a print from a negative found at British explorer Robert Falcon Scott's expedition hut.

A team from New Zealand's Antarctic Heritage Trust recently discovered 100-year-old photographic negatives left in British explorer Robert Falcon Scott's expedition hut on Cape Evans in Antarctica.

The small wooden hut was built during Scott's 1912 expedition to the South Pole. Scott wanted to be the first person to reach the South Pole, only to find that a Norwegian group had beaten him there. Scott and several of his team members died on the return trip.

The photos don't come from Scott's expedition - they were taken by members of Ernest Shackleton's Ross Sea party, an expedition that took place between 1914 and 1917. Some members of the party were forced to stay in Scott's hut in 1915 after becoming stranded when their ship, the Aurora, broke free from its mooring at Cape Evans and blew out to sea.

"One of the most striking images is of Ross Sea Party member Alexander Stevens, Shackleton's Chief Scientist, standing on-board the Aurora," the trust said in a statement.

Antarctic Heritage TrustThe cellulose nitrate negatives were found smashed together in a small box.

Twenty-two unprocessed negatives were found blocked together in a small box in the darkroom of Scott's expedition photographer Herbert Ponting, according to the Trust. It's not known who took the photos.

It took a painstaking amount of work for a conservator to separate and clean the photos, and though many are damaged, it's possible to make out many of the landmarks around the McMurdo Sound.

The Antarctic Heritage Trust is responsible for conserving five historic expedition bases in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica.

You can see a full gallery of images online here.