LONDON – A sledge and flag used in one of explorer Ernest Shackleton's famed expeditions to the South Pole have been bought by a British government-funded body to keep the treasured artefacts in the U.K.The National Heritage Memorial Fund, a government-funded body, said Wednesday it paid 204,000 pounds ($274,000) to help purchase the two items, used in the first of three British Antarctic expeditions led by Shackleton in the early 1900s.
The artifacts will be donated to two English museums.Earlier this year, British authorities slapped a temporary export ban on the artefacts.The expedition was named Nimrod after the ship, which came within less than 100 miles of the South Pole for the first time in 1909.