The ship sank off the port of Balaclava in 1854 during a winter storm.
Apart from its lost crew, it went down with thousands of uniforms and other materials desperately needed by British troops.
They were taking part in the Anglo-French-Turkish campaign to capture the fortressed port of Sevastopol, then part of the Russian Empire and now in the Ukraine.
The diving expedition and archaeological analysis of the wreck site was conducted by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.
The breakthrough came when a piece of plate, recovered from the captain’s mess last summer, was finally cleaned after a careful process taking many months.
On it was the name of the owner, the General Screw Steam Shipping Company, from which the Royal Navy had hired the ship for military duty.
In the year in which the Prince sank was fought the Battle of Balaclava, in which Russian forces came south to attack defences around Balaclava, held by the British.
They wished to disrupt British supply lines to the siege area around Sevastopol. Strong actions by Allied units ultimately ensured that the lines remained unbroken.
However, the battle is famous for the disastrous charge by the British Army’s Light Brigade against overwhelmingly superior Russian gunnery positions.
The elite cavalry unit of 673 men was forced to retreat after suffering heavy losses.
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