The Curse of Oak Island: UNEARTHED COIN Provides Crucial Evidence (Season 8) | History

On lot 15, just northeast of the money pit on Oak Island, archaeologists Laird Niven, Aaron Taylor, and David McGuinness continue their investigation of the 16th century pine tar kiln that, according to their research, may have been used in the construction of the money pit treasure vault.

Listen, excellent Jack right through me, metal detection expert Gary Drayden, along with Jack Bangley, return to the area with the OKM Exp6000 in search of any buried objects, voids, or tunnels.

So, let’s check it out. Having performed deep scans across the area, Gary and Jack now review their results to see if they may have also found anything of interest below ground.

The green color is just the background. What I’m interested in is those reds and oranges. Red and orange are always ferrous—there’s a lot of iron in this area. And if it’s non-ferrous, it’s going to be bright red. As we’re going along, we’re finding a good mix of targets. The one thing for sure, there’s a hell of a lot of metal in this area—lots of iron, but even more important, there are some non-ferrous targets.

Well, I’m a treasure hunter, so that’s probably gold and silver coins. There’s reds and oranges everywhere. Do you see anything that stands out to you that we need to go after on this?

“There’s a couple of areas over there.”

Let’s continue with the CTX and see if we can find surface finds. I’d like to find that one coin, that one ring… oh man, that one bobby dazzler that tells us a story.

Let me grab my shovel.

In order to narrow down the possibility that there could be important metal objects near the surface, Gary will now use the CTX 3030 metal detector—the same device he has used over the years to find numerous objects like the mysterious lead cross at Smith’s Cove, which is believed to be some 700 years old.

“There’s got to be another coin or something around here.”

Gary: “Nova is my—”

“There’s something there though. I’m gonna have to dig it out.”

“Damn, you want all the medieval on that one, mate?”

“Oh yeah, I’m not wasting time. Hopefully you’ve moved it.”

“Oh, I see it! What do you see?”

“That’s an axe. It’s a broken axe.”

“Oh, it is! Look at that, the way it comes down. That’s a really old axe, definitely. And just the weight of it tells me that this is really old.”

“I don’t think it’s a weapon. In the Maritimes, you’d call it a ship’s rigging axe. You’d use it on the ship for cutting ropes. What would it be doing right here?”

“Well, let’s say you came onto the beach here and you wanted to come inland. What are you gonna use? You’re gonna use one of these to hack your way into this area, like a machete.”

“Yeah, yep, because if you think about it, you got those operations up there, you got the beach here.”

Could Gary’s theory about this so-called ship’s rigging axe be correct? Could it be further evidence of human activity connecting the 800-year-old man-made stone-paved area in the swamp to the nearby pine tar kiln, as archaeologist Laird Niven and his associates have suggested?

“What’s the most recent it could have been used?”

“I don’t know, but it’s out here and it’s been here a heck of a long time. So probably before the discovery of the money pit.”

“Okay, let’s keep going.”

“It just sounds so good!”

“Come to Peppa, where you’re riding… I see it.”

“Oh no way! What the heck? That’s an old coin!”

“That’s a little beauty! Look at that. That’s an old coin, mate!”

“Oh yeah, that is an old coin. That is, I’m sure it is. I mean, you can see some kind of decoration. Any time there’s writing around the outside, mate, it’s a dead giveaway.”

“I don’t know. I should—okay, this is a top pocket find. It’s got the original patina. It’s got the shape—”

“That old shape. It’s not perfectly round. And it’s got that square hole in it, mate. You can tell it’s old, old, because it’s square. I mean, this could be an integral clue in figuring out exactly who used this tar kiln. But we’ve found a lot of coins over the years on Oak Island, and this looks to be probably one of the oldest, based upon the shape and the patina.”

“What’s fascinating about this coin is the shape and the fact that it’s got a square hole in the middle. This coin is very, very old, and I don’t believe it’s European. This coin is from somewhere much more exotic.”

“And you’re the coin expert, Gary. Can you date this coin off of just the features?”

“This is old, mine. My guess is 16-1700s.”

“This is great, Gary! This is bloody brilliant!”

“I think so! I’ll bump.”

“That’s what I love about metal detecting—a chance to pick up a piece of history.”