Season 10 of The Curse of Oak Island continues to show new discoveries and theories.
This week on Oak Island they first talked about where to drill the next bore hole. They are trying to figure out the location and direction that an underground tunnel is taking. The bore hole is near the Garden Shaft, so they will also look for gold signatures in the water.
Of course, one thing to remember is that the dig season is already over. They have taken the time to determine how to present things each week to build suspense and keep viewers tuned in.
With the Garden Shaft project on hold they are focusing on other projects.
One recent project was the purchase of an additional lot and they have started to explore it. Of course, this means metal detection and the team is already finding things.
Another new project was a ground penetrating radar survey north of the swamp to see if they could find evidence of what is believed to be a retaining structure or dam used to help create the swamp. The theory is that there used to be two separate islands that were joined together by creating the swamp. This week the results were show and they started doing some digging to find out more information. They also pointed out that an old hand drawn map has a notation for a dam in the area.
Excavation started and they soon found an artifact in the spoils. It looked to be a metal spike. Then wood was found that was coated with oil, most likely for waterproofing and a technology that was used long before creosote. The decision was made to get a permit for a larger dig to better determine the extent of the anomalies found with the GPR.
The bore hole that they drilled near the Garden Shaft brought up wood at a shallower depth than expected and it looked like a shaft instead of a tunnel. The big question is what is this shaft as it does not show up in the historical record of the searchers. The wood pieces were found to be cut with a pit saw which make them very old. Of course they do not yet have C14 data, but they would probably date to pre-searcher times.
The wood finds continued all the way down past 100 feet and indicate an old shaft as the wood is all hand cut. They plan on doing some more research to see if they can find if this shaft is mentioned in any of the old search reports. They will then determine the next location for a bore hole.
They did some metal detecting on the lot that they just purchased and found some more interesting artifacts. I am sure we will find out more about these in a future episode.
Last week they found a cut coin on the new lot that was made from arsenical bronze which dates it to around the 1600’s or earlier. This week a numismatist examined the coin and based on the metal composition it is possibly a Roman or Byzantine coin from perhaps as early as 300 BC. Of course, somebody excavating my home in the future may find something similar 🙂 They can faintly see an image on the coin and more research will be done. However, only about a third of the image is there since it is a cut coin.
The stone road in the swamp was brought up again and how it is exactly* like a Roman road in Portugal. Is there a connection with the coin that was found way across the island?
*I believe that they need to be careful about using the word exactly when something is similar but not exact. Exactly is use too much when they talk about finds.
In the preview of the next episode they showed some squares where they were conducting an archaeologic study but you could not tell where it was. They also showed a map where it looks like they have isolated the source of the gold in the water. It looks like it is centered on the Garden Shaft. Have they finally pinpointed the gold source?
It looks like it will be interesting next week.
How long before they resume the Garden Shaft project? Especially now that it looks like the gold source is centered there?
What will happen next?
Steven
Braman's Wanderings 