NARRATOR: Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island...
-ALEX: Sonar’s set up. -STEVE: Let’s get it down hole.
-PAUL: Okay. There it is. -SCOTT: It is a significant opening.
This could be the offset chamber.
Another anomaly was this one in the northern tip of the swamp.
TOM: Awfully close to the Eye of the Swamp.
Would a metal box give you that?
-For sure. Yeah. -MARTY: Wow.
We have managed to purchase Lot 5.
-(beeping rapidly) -GARY: Oh. Cool!
-Look at that! -Wow.
That’s treasure, mate.
NARRATOR: There is an island in the North Atlantic
where people have been looking for
an incredible treasure for more than 200 years.
So far, they have found a stone slab
with strange symbols carved into it...
...man-made workings that date to medieval times,
and a lead cross whose origin may be connected
to the Knights Templar.
To date, six men have died
trying to solve the mystery.
And according to legend, one more will have to die
before the treasure can be found.
♪ ♪
-ALEX: Jeremy’s here. -CRAIG: Hey, Jeremy.
-MARTY: Jeremy! -Hey, guys.
-You know Tom, don’t you? -Actually, I do not.
-You do not. -Tom, it’s good to meet you.
NARRATOR: As a new day begins on Oak Island,
brothers Rick and Marty Lagina,
their business partner Craig Tester,
and members of their team have gathered in the war room
with geophysicist Jeremy Church for a report
that they hope will help them solve
a 228-year-old treasure mystery.
MARTY: So, what do you got?
Well, I got some preliminary results
that are quite interesting from the swamp.
This map is very preliminary.
So, I need to do some full kind of processing
on the data set, but it’s these little red dots.
Those are the real exciting ones.
MARTY: There’s all kinds of stuff on here.
That’s correct, yeah.
-(beeping rapidly) -Whoa. Yeah. She’s going off. -TONY: Big one?
-Like off through the roof. -Really?
-JEREMY: Yeah. -TONY: Fantastic.
NARRATOR: One week ago, Jeremy,
diver Tony Sampson
and Jeremy’s colleague Burton Cosgrove
conducted a new geophysical scan
searching for evidence of buried metal objects
in the Oak Island swamp.
It is within this curiously triangle-shaped feature
that the team has made a number of extraordinary discoveries
in recent years,
including numerous pieces
of ancient sailing ships and cargo barrels,
a stone road, or wharf,
and even a massive rock-paved area
that has been dated by geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner
to as early as 1200 AD.
Now, after processing the data he collected
during the recent survey,
Jeremey has returned to present the team with his findings.
JEREMY: So, the hot colors, reds, that’s higher conductivity.
So we’re looking for higher conductivity
if we’re looking for metallic features especially.
What do you think those are, Tom?
-I don’t know. -MARTY: Hmm.
So, we need a swamp excavator to find out.
(laughter)
You know, this could be the Jack Adams box.
-TOM: The box. -RICK: Jack approached your father
-and said, "Hey, I’ve got a metal target." -TOM: Yes.
Whatever that man found is in that swamp.
And maybe that’s it.
NARRATOR: In the 1930s, island caretaker Jack Adams
probed the swamp and struck what he described as a "mystery box."
Unfortunately, he was unable to determine just what it was.
But later in 1969,
after hearing Mr. Adams’ story,
Tom Nolan’s late father, Fred, drained the swamp
in order to look for it.
The box was never found, but Fred was astonished
to discover numerous parts of a large sailing vessel,
as well as survey stakes that were dated to as much
as three centuries prior to the discovery of the Money Pit.
This made Fred speculate that the swamp
may have been artificially created
in order to hide the wreck of a ship and its valuable cargo.
Is it possible that Jeremy Church has found
more evidence that this theory could be true?
I truly believe in that story.
So, one of those could be that box.
Would a metal box give you that anomaly?
-For sure, yeah. -MARTY: Well, that’s interesting.
Real interesting.
Yeah.
You’ve got the small hot spots there, and then around them,
there’s a large area that’s orange.
-What is that? -I think that’s a good question.
So, within here you’ve got a deeper body of water
causing that slightly elevated conductivity.
But as you come northwards here,
the conductivity levels are much lower.
So, another anomaly that I was very interested in
was this one in the northern tip of the swamp.
You see all this blue, and there’s this nice little,
circular, moderately high conductivity feature.
RICK: That’s above the eye.
MARTY: Is that the eye?
Yeah, that’s awfully close to the Eye of the Swamp.
NARRATOR: Three years ago, the Oak Island team
drained and excavated a mysterious circular feature
at the northern point known as the Eye of the Swamp.
GARY: That looks like one of the conical rocks.
NARRATOR: There, a formation of boulders was discovered
surrounding a possible shaft,
which Dr. Ian Spooner believes
may have been artificially created nearly 350 years ago.
Is it possible that Jeremy has found evidence
that something metallic, and of potential value,
could be buried much deeper
at the so-called Eye of the Swamp?
CRAIG: Yeah, if the Eye of the Swamp may be indicating
it has more depth to it
than what we see right at the surface,
-that’s interesting. -MARTY: All right.
Well, that’s all very, very intriguing.
ALEX: Is it enough to apply for a permit, though?
-Or at least get started? -Yes, I would think.
You know, I think there’s targets here, yes.
But I’d like to see a little more processing
to get more specific targets and see which ones
really jump out as the highest priorities
-and which are more moderate priorities. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: Due to enhanced provincial restrictions
on swamp exploration this year,
the team must first identify any targets
they wish to excavate before applying for permits.
That means, they will need to wait
for Jeremy’s fully processed survey data.
TOM: Another thing I would like to try
is to see on the north side of the swamp.
According to Dad, there is some sort of a wall system
between the beach and the swamp.
-Right. -TOM: We might be able to find it.
And I mean, that would be huge if we could.
You’re well aware of the noninvasive,
geophysical instruments we could run there.
MARTY: I think we can do that in a few days.
-Yeah. -All right.
I’m eager to get more data. More things to look at.
Intrigue upon intrigue.
-Thank you, Jeremy. -JEREMY: Thank you.
NARRATOR: Later that afternoon...
-ALEX: Okay, sonar’s set up? -Yes, ready to go.
...Alex Lagina joins other members of
the Oak Island team in the Money Pit area,
where they are preparing to conduct
a sonar scanning operation in borehole L-15.
I’m interested to see how big this cavity is.
When we did the camera,
the scale was, like, the hardest thing to tell.
And I mean, to be honest, we don’t really know
-what this is. -SCOTT: Yeah.
PAUL: It’s coming up shortly.
NARRATOR: One week ago,
after drilling into a mysterious void
at a depth of some 150 feet,
Rick, Marty and members of the team
inserted a high-definition camera
to see if it might be a natural cavity
or perhaps something that was man-made.
Wait. No. Stop.
-That’s pretty square. -RICK: Wow.
MARTY: I think it has the possibility of not being natural.
The best thing about the sonar is you get a diameter/perimeter
of what the cavity is.
-Yeah. -ALEX: Right. This is gonna be interesting,
and hopefully we can get some good data.
Okay. Well, let’s get started.
-Let’s get it down hole. -Yep.
-Help Steve unravel it there. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: Now, after obtaining compelling
but limited visual evidence of possible human activity
inside the cavern,
the team is hoping that sonar will help them determine
if it could be a tunnel or perhaps a vault
that might contain something of value.
MARTY: I’m keenly interested in this cavity.
It’s a long shot, but this could be the offset chamber.
Okay, now we’re scanning.
Okay. We’re in business.
MARTY: Maybe the sonar will show what’s contained in the cavity.
That’s my hope.
Okay. We’re inside the casing it looks like.
So push it in a little further, maybe.
Must be getting close to the end here.
-There’s your 150. -STEVE: We’re in the hole.
PAUL: Okay, now we’re getting an image.
-It’s not a very strong return. -ALEX: Yeah.
Can you lower it a little bit more?
Sure.
Okay, I’ve just dropped six more inches.
PAUL: Now we have another image coming in.
SCOTT: Whoa.
STEVE: Oh, that’s a good opening.
SCOTT: It is. It’s a significant opening.
-ALEX: It’s pretty distinct. -Yeah.
SCOTT: You can see the opening coming down here.
♪ ♪
ALEX: Yeah, that’s something.
STEVE: It’s a decent-sized cavity.
SCOTT: It is. Nearly 15 feet long.
We seem like we have quite an open space right here.
NARRATOR: While conducting a sonar operation
in a borehole known as L-15 in the Money Pit area,
members of the Oak Island team have just confirmed
the existence of a large void
approximately 150 feet underground.
-Very large return. -ALEX: Yeah.
PAUL: And we have hard signals to the east and the west of it.
That material, whether it’s wood or it’s actually
disturbed material that’s close by,
it’s high intensity.
-Yeah. -PAUL: So that’s what we’re seeing.
It’s a well-defined, open area to the north and south.
-But it is, as you can see, it’s very linear. -STEVE: Yeah.
And I see it goes a lot farther than that
-based on the data in front of us. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: Linear features?
In a large void at the bottom of borehole L-15?
Could this mean that the team has possibly discovered
a man-made tunnel some 150 feet below ground
in the Money Pit area?
If so, who created it?
When? And where does it lead?
STEVE: That’s good sonar data.
So, what we’ll do is we’ll download it and process it.
I’ll put it in CAD, and then I can show the guys,
-Rick and Marty, right? -Sounds like a plan.
-ALEX: Okay. -STEVE: All righty. -SCOTT: All right.
-Let’s pull it up. -ALEX: Yep.
NARRATOR: The following morning...
PETER: Is this about the area?
Yeah. Where we’re at here.
We’re at the actual northern face of the swamp.
...on Lot 10,
located just north of the triangle-shaped swamp...
This area has changed over the years.
...Peter Fornetti and Oak Island landowner Tom Nolan
are preparing to conduct a ground-penetrating radar scan
with subsurface detecting expert Stephan Grund.
TOM: My dad did quite a bit of work in this area
and at one point, he thought he had come across
some sort of a structure
that had something to do with constructing this bog,
if it was man-made.
NARRATOR: It was in this area
where, back in the 1970s,
Tom’s father, Fred Nolan,
believed he found evidence
that Oak Island may have once been two separate land masses
and were joined together by an artificially-created swamp.
Do you believe there’s any specific items here, or...
I think what we might be looking for here
is some sort of a-a log structure.
-STEPHAN: Mm-hmm. -TOM: There was some sort of a damming system here.
Good, then let’s set up a grid.
Okay.
RICK: Fred, unlike previous searchers,
was focused on trying to unravel the mystery.
Here and then we go down a couple of feet.
RICK: And because of his skill and expertise as a surveyor,
he brought a skill set that no one had done in the past.
He thought there was a log wall, a structure,
that he inferred might be associated with
either letting water into the swamp or out of the swamp...
12 and a half.
...and I would love nothing better to affirm that
that is true.
Okay. I’m good to go.
-(beeping steadily) -NARRATOR: In order to search for evidence of
possible man-made workings,
Stephan is scanning the entire area
just north of the swamp in a grid pattern,
using the OKM Gepard 3D ground penetrating radar device.
-Here we go for one more line. -Yep.
-And then we just extend the grid. -Okay. Sure.
NARRATOR: The device works by sending radio waves into the ground
which can identify possible structures
buried as much as 130 feet deep.
Okay.
Okay, good. Let’s have a look at the data.
Okay.
So, we’re now in the 3D view.
We do see some anomalies,
especially here in the middle.
TOM: Perfect. We’re looking for a log structure.
-PETER: Yeah. -That might be it.
-STEPHAN: Yep. -TOM: Pretty exciting. -PETER: Yeah.
It’s really cool that we’re getting
the GPR anomalies in the area of interest,
-kind of the middle of the bog area. -STEPHAN: Yeah.
Which would be kind of where the two--
if there were two islands-- they would come together.
Yeah.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that Peter, Tom and Stephan
have found potential evidence that Fred Nolan’s
incredible theory about the swamp could be true?
TOM: If my dad was here today and seen just the level of
interest in that swamp,
you know, I think he’d be quite amazed.
Hopefully, we can shed some light
on where this is going.
PETER: So, hopefully once we have this data processed,
we can maybe see a damming mechanism.
Yep. No. Looking forward to getting the data back
-and seeing what it says. -PETER: Yeah.
-Perfect. -TOM: Sounds good.
NARRATOR: Later that afternoon...
RICK: Afternoon.
-BILLY: Hi, Marty. -GARY: Hello, mate.
Hey, guys.
...Brothers Rick and Marty Lagina
have called an important meeting
with members of the team in the war room.
RICK: Well, Marty, you and I have
an announcement to make and I think where everyone’s
gonna be quite interested in it.
So if you want to tell everybody "the big secret."
MARTY: All right. Here we go, guys.
We have managed to purchase...
Lot 5.
-Wow. Sweet. -Yeah.
-MARTY: Huh? -JACK: That’s great.
Gary, what do you think about that?
Bloody brilliant. I can’t wait to get on Lot 5.
MARTY: It was really one of the pieces we’ve been missing.
We have high hopes that
there could be some real crucial,
crucial data on that lot and we own it.
-(laughs) -GARY: Okay.
NARRATOR: Located near the center of Oak Island,
Lot 5’s four acres have never been accessible to Rick,
Marty, Craig and the team until now.
Once owned by the late Fred Nolan,
the property was sold to his then research partner,
Robert Young, over two decades ago.
Mr. Young would make a number of notable discoveries there,
including ancient coins and artifacts
before his own passing in 2020.
Because of Robert Young’s kind offer,
we were able to actually visit his home,
and we saw the artifacts that he had recovered,
and I think we were all impressed, right?
We were.
Robert invested a large portion of his life
in trying to understand what Lot 5 meant.
He found coins. He found buttons.
He found other artifacts.
Everything that we have found, he found.
It’s exciting. We know...
there have been some very interesting finds on Lot 5.
Look, around the table, I-I sense the excitement.
-Yeah. -RICK: For a number of reasons,
this is a really good day for Oak Island.
Not only putting the island back together but being able
to advance the search with more puzzle pieces.
Hopefully the ride will be quite entertaining.
Gary, I’m quite surprised you’re still in that room.
Oh, I’m anxious to get out there.
(laughter)
I’ll put some coil to the soil.
(laughter)
GARY: This is fantastic news.
RICK: Release the hounds.
GARY: Big day, Rick.
I’ve been waiting for this day
for a very long time.
RICK: I can’t but agree, Gary.
NARRATOR: Following their meeting in the war room,
Rick Lagina, metal detection expert Gary Drayton
and archaeologist Laird Niven
anxiously arrive on Lot 5,
located on the western side of Oak Island.
Laird, this must be exciting for you.
Yes. It just bothered me
-to not have access to it. -RICK: Mm-hmm.
To-to have that part of the story missing.
And we’ll just add to Robert’s legacy.
LAIRD: Mm-hmm.
That’s the whole point of this.
-Yeah. -Continuing the work that he did
for many, many, many years.
The lot is a mystery.
Let-Let’s see what we can find.
Okay.
(whirs)
RICK: When we take down the sign,
we realize that it is indeed our responsibility at this point
to carry on Robert’s work.
This is in the past now, mate.
-To the future. -Let’s get started.
Am I ecstatic, over the moon, to be able
to go dig on a lot that has eluded us?
The opportunity for answers?
Hundred percent.
You could equate it to being given the keys
to the family car when you’re 15 or 16.
I didn’t think this day would ever happen.
It’s very, very cool.
(metal detector beeps on)
All right. Let’s get stuck in.
(beeping steadily)
I’ll just keep zigzagging.
This is the edge of the lot line.
(beeping)
We’re in business.
Got a signal here. Just there, mate.
Thank you, sir.
(high-pitched beeping)
Ooh!
I feel something heavy in me hand.
A big ol’ fastener. Look at that.
What the hell’s that doing out here?
This looks like wrought iron.
-It’s heavy, though, isn’t it? It’s well made. -Yup.
Does this resemble anything we’ve pulled
out of the Money Pit?
My first reaction is that it’s almost chisel-like.
-Oh, wow. Like a tool? Yeah. -Yeah.
You hit the nail on the head. No pun intended.
-What’s a chisel doing out here, right? -Yeah.
-GARY: And wrought iron.
NARRATOR: A hand-wrought iron chisel?
Found on Lot 5?
Because the documented history of the island shows
no record that anyone ever established
a homestead or farm in this area,
just who may have brought this tool here?
And what did they use it for?
GARY: I love finding artifacts like this.
We have just pulled up what I believe to be an old chisel.
This is the type of thing you would need
if you’re depositing treasure.
You bring tools.
Okay, mate. It’s definitely worth bagging.
Lot 5, baby.
Been waiting a long time for this.
All right, let’s see if we can add to the collection.
(beeping)
We ain’t going very far, did you hear that?
Yeah, we got another signal, right by the hole.
This train’s a-rolling.
(high-pitched beeping)
Ooh!
I’m on it.
What’ve we got here?
Oh, look at that.
Another one.
What in the world?
-That’s the same exact thing, though. -Yeah.
It’s not very often that we find...
-Not two. -...two of the same.
You’ve got to imagine that these two were lost at the same time.
-Yeah, which is odd. -I think you’re right, Laird.
They look like tools, chisels.
We could be in ye old toolbox here.
(laughter)
RICK: Finding two tools in very close proximity
means that somebody was there doing something.
What makes sense to me is there was an activity happening,
in the moment things got exciting,
and the tools were lost
or misplaced
because of something else going on.
I-I find that possibility incredibly exciting.
Artifacts, every few feet.
This is gonna be fantastic, mate.
-Lot 5. -You’re gonna be sleeping out here.
The giving lot.
Another artifact off Lot 5.
NARRATOR: Following his exciting first hunt for clues on Lot 5...
GROUP: Hey, Craig.
-Hello, Craig. -Hey, guys.
...Rick returns to the war room
with Marty and members of the team.
They have gathered to review a report
of the sonar data collected one day ago
in the mysterious void located some 150 feet underground
in the Money Pit area.
These war rooms are my favorite in the sense that
we’ve got some good data, specifically,
we found a rather odd, open cavern in and around L-15.
-Yep. -Who has the data?
-STEVE: I do. -MARTY: All right, Steve.
Put it on the screen.
STEVE: So, we ran the sonar.
We downloaded the data. We processed the data.
And then Scott and I, Craig worked on a couple orientations.
And so, I’ve scaled it. I put an orientation to it.
I locked it to L-15, and I’m gonna drop it in place.
There it is. Okay.
This is our sonar cavity.
SCOTT: It was a wide-open cavity with no obstruction.
And so, the size of it as it sits now,
it’s about 27 feet, east to west,
about 12 feet north to south.
Wow.
And it could be further.
Holy smokes.
NARRATOR: A void approximately 150 feet underground
in the Money Pit area?
Measuring some 30 feet long?
If so, is it a natural feature?
Or was it artificially created?
Craig, describe it geologically.
Well, it’s in kind of the-the limestone bed
that’s just above the bedrock.
I look at the other wells in the area,
i-it doesn’t make sense.
♪ ♪
This is very, very odd.
Dan, in all the time you’ve been here, have you seen
any open cavities in the limestone?
We had absolutely no discernable flow of water horizontally
and, uh, therefore no erosion by water.
Right.
So, uh,
any voids in the limestone, uh, uh...
would pretty much have to be man-made.
(laughter)
MARTY: This could be it.
MARTY: It could be man-made in the sense that
somebody started something
or put something there.
Yeah, could be from the original depositors.
NARRATOR: In the Oak Island war room,
Rick and Marty Lagina, along with members of the team,
have just reviewed sonar data
indicating that the void they discovered
some 150 feet deep in the Money Pit area
is at least 30 feet long and is potentially man-made.
MARTY: Caves are usually made by water flowing through
porous, permeable and soluble material.
According to Dan, water doesn’t move through it.
So, the odds are
if water didn’t create this cave,
then people did.
With the Hedden Shaft and the, uh, Chappell pit
where they are,
this area looks as if it’s in the general area
where those shafts were flooded out.
Okay.
CRAIG: This depth is basically
where the vault was found from Chappell.
That’s right. Yeah.
NARRATOR: In 1897,
treasure hunters Frederick Blair and William Chappell
drilled into what they described as a seven-foot-tall wooden box,
encased in concrete at a depth of 153 feet.
It was this operation that revealed traces of gold,
as well as a piece of parchment
with the letters "VI" written on it.
In the following years,
two different shafts were constructed
in failed attempts to retrieve the so-called Chappell Vault.
The first was constructed by William Chappell, himself,
along with his son, Melbourne, in 1931.
The second effort was led by New York-based engineer
Gilbert Hedden in 1937.
But now, is it possible
that in borehole L-15,
where the team has found
a potentially man-made linear cavern
some 150 feet deep in the same area of the Money Pit,
that they have potentially discovered
where the fabled Oak Island treasure lies hidden?
Could this be associated with the so-called Chappell Vault
that was drilled, uh, in the late 1800s? Yes.
Because we don’t know
that it is actually sealed at the ends.
What if the end of it connects with the Chappell Vault?
Maybe that’s what they drilled into.
Look, I’m not ruling out that this could be it.
-It’s very, very odd. Yeah. -100%.
100% oddball.
I mean, we have a great image.
It’s already 27 by 12 feet.
We know it’s a substantial cavity at that,
but we don’t have enough information
to really know where it goes
-or how substantial this is. -Right.
When we pull out of it at the top of the cavity,
we know it’s probably gonna collapse a little bit.
Uh, my whole deal was to chase the gold,
and we’re running out of time.
Yeah.
NARRATOR: Although the Oak Island team
is excited by this potential breakthrough,
unfortunately, it presents a complicated dilemma
for how to further explore it.
First, if something of great, historic value
really does lie within this cavern,
then drilling more boreholes raises the chance
of damaging whatever it may be.
And secondly, the team has dedicated
a majority of their financial resources for this year
to refurbishing the nearby Garden Shaft,
where high trace evidence of gold has been detected.
However, the project is currently on hold
pending necessary permit applications.
It-It’s worth investigating.
I mean, I can’t believe anybody around the table would say,
-"Ah, let it go." -No.
So, we need more information.
-Yeah. -RICK: We need to map it.
-We need 3D sonar. -SCOTT: Yeah.
Paul did find another company yesterday,
and he has reached out, too, for a price on a rental.
And he hasn’t heard back from them yet.
RICK: We could go to another location
because we don’t know when the sonar’s coming.
Yeah.
RICK: Until we arrive at a plan,
we’re going to have a stand-down, if you will.
So we will move away from this location,
but we are certainly not done.
MARTY: I say we go drilling near the Garden Shaft.
-How’s that? -Done.
All right. Perfect.
So let’s get back at it.
NARRATOR: The following morning...
GARY: I’m happy. Lot 5.
-RICK: You’ve been flagging, Gary? -GARY: Yeah, mate.
-Today is gonna be a good day. -(Rick laughs)
...Rick Lagina and metal detection expert Gary Drayton
return to Lot 5 to search for additional clues.
All right. Let’s see what we’ve got waiting for us here.
All right.
See what this one sounds like.
-(beeping) -Oh, I like the sounds of that.
See how wide it is?
Well, that’s the center of it.
It’s rocky, man.
Let’s see if that did anything.
(beeps steadily)
-See if I can pinpoint it. -(high-pitched beeping)
-(beeping rapidly) -Oh.
(both laughing)
-RICK: Survey marker. -Yep.
That’s a survey marker, mate.
Survey says: don’t dig on top of it.
Okay, so, the next targets are down here, mate.
And we’re going further into Lot 5.
RICK: Okey doke.
Robert Young did exhaustive work on his property,
and he worked intimately with Fred Nolan.
But he did not have the sophisticated equipment
that Gary has.
So, could something of immense value still be hiding on Lot 5?
Absolutely.
All right, this is better, mate.
We’re getting more in to Lot 5.
Now, we stand a chance of finding something good.
(chuckles)
-Okay, I’m gonna hold you to it. -Okay.
-(beeping steadily) -RICK: Ooh, that sounds better.
-GARY: It does, doesn’t it? -RICK: Yep.
Just there.
There’s nothing but rock.
GARY: It’s just too rough land to be farmland, isn’t it?
-RICK: You would think, yeah. -GARY: Yeah.
All right, mate. Let’s see if you moved it.
-(beeping) -RICK: Yep.
Yup, think you moved it.
(high-pitched beeping)
Oh.
Cool! Look at that!
That’s treasure, mate.
GARY: Oh, wow. Look at that.
-(beep) -Button?
-It’s a coin, mate! -(laughs)
Oh, that is old.
NARRATOR: On Lot 5,
located on property just acquired by the Laginas
and their partner Craig Tester,
Rick and Gary Drayton have just made
a potentially important discovery.
Look at the patina on that.
-Oh, my God, my hands are shaking, mate. -RICK: Turn it over.
GARY: That’s a cut coin by the look of it.
-Hmm? -Yeah.
That’s what they did back in the day.
They cut them in half or cut little bits off
for change, ’cause that’s why they cut coins,
especially hammered coins in half, and...
This is freaking gorgeous, mate,
-and that ain’t no milled coin, mate. -RICK: No.
To me, mate, this looks like an hammered coin.
Obviously, it’s not a milled coin.
-RICK: No. -GARY: It’s too thin.
And if it is hammered, mate, it goes way back.
That is old.
NARRATOR: Dating back to the first millennium BC,
hammered coinage was the first known method
for creating metal currency in human history.
By placing a small, blank piece of metal
between two patterned surfaces, known as dies,
repeated hammering would create the stamp,
or assigned value, on either side of the coin.
It’s bloody fantastic, mate.
NARRATOR: But what makes this find
potentially important for the team
is that the process was replaced by the invention
of machines in Europe during the 15 century.
This means that it could be more than 500 years old.
This is the type of find that you would pull up
in Europe somewhere,
and that’s what makes it so special.
-That’s treasure, mate. -(laughs) That would be.
Yeah. Brilliant, mate.
This is special. We have got to bag this.
This could be very, very important.
Wow. That’s a little, mini piece of art there.
Okay. Get that sealed.
You know where that’s going, mate.
That is a bona fide top pocket find, mate,
if ever I saw one.
How about getting it right back to the lab
-and finding out what it is? -I’m good with that.
-GARY: See what the techie machines tell us. -(Rick laughs)
NARRATOR: Following their discovery on Lot 5...
GARY: Just the people we want to see.
...Rick and Gary arrive at the Interpretive Centre
to have it analyzed by archaeologist Laird Niven
and archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan.
Sometimes when we’re in here,
and we’re just standing and Gary and Jack,
-or Gary and Peter come in, right? -Yeah. Yeah.
And what do we always say? "Oh, they’re smiling."
-(laughter) -Look.
That’s a good sign.
That’s a very good sign,
especially about this item. Gary.
Well, we just come from Lot 5, mate.
-Right. Yeah. -And pulled up
a nice top pocket find, mate.
Don’t worry, it’s still in the bag.
Check that out, mate.
See what you think of that.
Off come the glasses.
Oh, it’s thin.
GARY: Yeah.
It looked like a button at first, but it’s not.
Nope.
Don’t keep me in suspenders, mate. What do you think?
It’s a cut coin?
That’s what I thought as well.
-LAIRD: The patina’s great. -GARY: Yeah.
We couldn’t tell whether it looked like copper
-or silver. -LAIRD: Yeah.
GARY: I mean, I’ve seen a lot of coins.
I’ve actually found hammered coins in England,
and obviously I’ve found a lot of Spanish reales
in North America,
but I haven’t seen this design before.
I just don’t know what I’m looking at.
Well, we can XRF it.
That will tell us for sure what this metal is.
GARY: Yeah, that’s what we’re hoping you can do, mate.
LAIRD: All right. Emma?
-I’m hoping it’s silver. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: To gain more information
on the possible origin of the coin,
Emma will use the X-ray fluorescence spectrometer,
or XRF device, which can identify the types of
elements and metals that make up its composition.
Right now, I’m just going through each peak
and identifying all those elements.
It’s preserved like it’s silver,
-and it looks like it’s copper. -Hmm.
Well, we will soon find out.
♪ ♪
EMMA: All right, it looks mainly copper, some tin.
Some iron.
That little tiny bump right there is arsenic.
So, is it arsenical bronze?
Yeah, it would be like an arsenical bronze.
Wow. So, it’s old?
Yeah. Kind of like 1500s
-and kind of trickled out. -LAIRD: Yeah.
-Oh. -By 1700s, you wouldn’t have seen it whatsoever.
-So, it is old. -Yeah.
-Bloody nice. -(laughs)
EMMA: It is old.
We don’t see arsenical bronze past a certain date.
NARRATOR: In the Oak Island Interpretive Centre,
archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan has determined
that a coin just found on Lot 5
by Rick Lagina and Gary Drayton
contains arsenical bronze,
an alloy that stopped being used in coin production
nearly two centuries
before the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795.
And coins of that size are usually
like 16 century, pre-those dates.
-Yeah. -Yeah. Yep. -EMMA: Yeah.
You remember the other arsenical copper piece.
-The little guy. -The arsenical bronze.
That was found on Lot 7,
and this is a couple lots over, Lot 5.
-Not too far away from each other. -EMMA: Mm-hmm.
(beeping)
NARRATOR: Two months ago,
Gary and Jack Begley discovered a barter token
on nearby Lot 7,
which also contained arsenical bronze,
and was determined by coin expert Sandy Campbell
to potentially predate the 16 century.
It’s 500 years old, at least.
(exhales sharply)
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the team has just unearthed
another critical puzzle piece that could help them
determine the origin of the Oak Island mystery?
You can eliminate, for the most part,
English and Spanish, right?
Yeah, I don’t think it’s English or Spanish.
-So, that takes it into... -Yeah.
...some pretty interesting territory.
We have fingerprints now that
-certainly suggest the 1500s, right? -Mm-hmm.
So, it’s starting to craft or weave some sort of
texture towards a story component, right?
Yeah, I like it when we can add artifacts
-Mm-hmm. -and-and really strengthen our argument
that there was early activity here.
Mm.
RICK: Arsenical bronze dating from as early as 1500.
Um, that’s an aha moment.
That’s quite remarkable.
What does it mean?
You know, it’s like, I’m up here with "Wow, fantastic.
"1500. Unbelievable, right?
Little piece of something telling us that."
And then I’m down here like, "But what does it mean?"
Marty, he’s a science guy, right? He loves data.
So, I think I’ll give him a call.
(line rings)
Hey.
We happen to be in the lab.
-So, you know what that means: data. -MARTY: Yeah.
It’s not Bravo Tango, but it’s...
...it’s interesting, let’s put it that way.
So, turn you over to Gary.
Hang on.
Hey, mate. How’re you doing?
(chuckles) No, I wish I was.
We just got the results, and it is a copper coin.
And the most important part is it was recovered on Lot 5.
-Can you show him? -Um...
I’ll try and show you, mate.
This looks like an old hammered coin.
I can’t really make out the details on it.
Yeah, you got that right, mate. Nice pun as well.
But there’s something special about this.
All right, mate.
-So, I’ll pass you on to Laird and Emma. -Emma.
Cheers.
-Will do, mate. -LAIRD: Here’s Emma.
Heyo. Hi, hi.
So, this-this is coming up as an arsenical-like bronze.
Which is pretty similar to the arsenical alloy
that we found earlier.
It’s basically faded out from the 15 century onwards.
And they’re all kind of gathered around Lot 5 to Lot 7.
So, yeah, there’s a collection of
these really old coins and metals
which is really interesting.
-It’s exciting. -EMMA: Yeah.
-No. -(laughter)
Oh, we might with this.
That’s how... that’s how confident I am
that this is a very, very old coin.
Look, i-it’s a great find, but the more items we find,
the more story, the more connective tissue.
(laughter)
There’s plenty of Lot 5. Don’t worry about it.
-Take care. See you. -Bye.
Cheers.
Okay, well, I mean, it’s all good news.
-Yeah. -Lot 5, Lot 7 are now turning up
some really esoteric metals.
-Yeah. -And we need to find out why.
So, there’s a lot of work to do, but...
you and I won’t do it in here, right?
So I think we should go back out, find more.
-Okay, mate. -All right.
-RICK: Good luck. -GARY: See you later, guys.
-LAIRD: Thanks. -GARY: Cheers.
NARRATOR: As another week comes to an end on Oak Island,
Rick, Marty, Craig and their team
have once again made incredible progress
toward solving the Oak Island mystery.
Now, as they continue their pursuit of
breakthrough discoveries in the Money Pit,
the swamp,
and on the western side of the island,
will something that could rewrite North American history
soon be revealed?
If so,
will the team, and the world,
be prepared for what they may find?
Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...
-CHARLES: Oh! We got wood. -TERRY: Whoa!
It looks like it might be a new shaft.
-It changes the whole story. -TERRY: Yeah.
We could be looking at the Money Pit.
STEPHAN: There’s significant anomalies in this area.
Wow. That is huge. We need to dig.
Oh, yeah. Look at that.
-That is sweet. -Whoa.
This is Roman.
-Roman? -No way.
Definitely from 300 BC.
Roman, baby.
-(laughter) -It’s remarkable.
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