ATLANTA (AP) — The brightly lit room looks like any nondescript warehouse packed with boxes and dusty shelves, but inside this plain brick building is nearly $200 million worth of treasures from the world's most famous shipwreck.

The 5,500-piece collection contains almost everything recovered from the wreckage of the RMS Titanic, which has sat 2.5 miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean since the boat sank on April 15, 1912.

When the fine china, brine-soaked shoes and water-stained sheet music aren't on tour around the world, they have a permanent home in Atlanta, the headquarters of Premier Exhibitions, which has guardianship over the artefacts. "It's like the Smithsonian — you could be here for weeks and not see everything," said Leslie Cone, an assistant registrar with Premier, as she looked at the collection of delicate papers from the Titanic. "There's just endless surprises and wonders in this collection."

About 200 pieces from the Titanic collection will be exhibited at the Georgia Aquarium starting Friday, the first time the show has been at an aquarium.

Officials with Premier are hoping the tactic will breathe new life into the 14-year-old show and help visitors better grasp the role the ocean has played in the story of the ill-fated ship. And aquarium officials hope the first-of-its-kind exhibition will bring more visitors to one of the world's largest fish tanks, where attendance numbers have been on a steady decline since it opened in 2005.

"Any time an attraction opens, attendance inevitably is going to slide from your opening year," said aquarium spokesman Dave Santucci. "We're trying to make sure people don't feel they've seen everything at the aquarium."

The Titanic collection has helped unlock the mystery behind what was once the world's largest passenger ship, which eventually became the watery grave of 1,517 people.

The collection includes everything from fine china and cookware to a 30,000-pound hunk of the ship's hull.

In the Atlanta warehouse where the artefacts are stored, there is a constant hum of humidifiers that protect metal and paper from moisture in the air.

On a recent day, Cone and another colleague carefully packed up items to ship to the aquarium show. Wearing white cotton gloves, they slowly picked up a pair of dainty women's slippers and placed them in a crate full of foam and tissue paper. The bow-topped shoes laid in a leather suitcase on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean for close to a century, but they still have the imprint of a foot on the insole.

The tanning process for leather in the early 1900s included a chemical that wards off ocean microbes that would have normally destroyed most non-metal pieces.

That chemical is the only reason so many artefacts from the Titanic have been recovered in such good condition.

RMS Titanic Inc.: –www.rmstitanic.net/

Premier Exhibitions:–www.prxi.com/