[Gary]
-Lot 5. -[Rick] Yep.
[narrator]
and metal detection expert Gary Drayton
arrive on Lot 5
to look for more clues that might reveal
who built the mysterious stone structures
located in this area, and why.
[Gary] I've gone over all this stuff.
-Mm-hm. -And I've got a lot of flags.
I've got a dozen flags in this area,
and all of these spoils
came from the bottom of that hole, so...
it should be the deepest finds.
[narrator]
that have recently been removed
from a circular depression.
A fissure where they have found artifacts
dating between the 17th and mid-18th centuries.
-[beeping] -Pretty good.
Yeah, pretty good.
I'm in agreement, mate. Pretty good.
[narrator]
a number of potential targets earlier today,
Gary and Rick have now received permission
from archaeologist Laird Niven to dig them up.
-[beeping] -It's out.
[Gary] Come on. Let's be something good.
[beeping]
-[Rick] Is that... -[Gary] Nope.
[rapid beeping]
It's in my hand.
Which means it's small.
[Rick] Mm-hm.
[Gary] There.
-[beeping] -[Gary] It's out.
-A lead shot. -Mm-hm.
-[Rick] Small caliber too. -[Gary] Yeah.
-It's an oldie. -Very cool.
[Gary] Get the lead tested.
I'd say its period, for the lot...
all the finds we'd finding, they're going way back
to the early 1700s.
Could be anywhere in the 1700s.
Maybe a little bit older.
It could be military.
[narrator]
Found in the spoils
removed from the circular feature
on Lot 5?
And possibly dating back to the 1700s?
If so, could it be another clue
potentially related to the Duc d'Anville's ship's log?
Which detailed a French naval mission
to hide treasure on an island
in this area back in 1746.
-Right. Let's find some more. -[Rick] Okay.
[beeping]
That could go either way.
Yeah, that was broken up.
[beeping]
[Gary] Something good!
[beeping]
-That was it. -A shell casing.
Is it? No, it is not a shell casing like that.
It's an unusual find.
-Oh, is it? -Look at that, mate.
[Gary] I don't know, it...
You know, the archaeologists are over there.
-Mm-hm. -Should we call Helen over?
-Sure. -Helen, check this out!
Hey, Gary. You guys found something?
-[Gary] Yeah, look at that. -[Rick] What d'you make of that?
[Helen] Oh, look at that.
[Gary] Hopefully, you have an idea of what it is.
[Rick] What is that?
I would say, it's like, you know,
gun-related.
-Yeah? -[Helen] It looks like a sight.
[Gary] Well, it's really, really special-looking.
And I'm glad you went to gun,
because I was thinking old guns.
Yeah.
I mean, to me, that looks like a gun sight, right?
-[Gary] Could be. -[Helen] Yeah, that's nice.
-[Gary] For sure. -[Helen] Yeah.
Well, thanks for your input, Helen.
Okay.
[Rick]
that we believe have some military context.
This may be another of them.
Again, this speaks to an enterprise here
could possibly have been conducted
by the Duc d'Anville expedition.
The good news is, they can be tested.
How about taking this lot back to the lab?
I'm really, really curious.
That copper, barrel-shaped artifact.
That's special.
Let's add that to the database
and keep going.
[Gary]
[narrator]
in the Interpretative Center.
[man]
This artifact came off Lot 5.
Not too far off the round feature.
It may be gun-related.
[narrator]
and other members of the team
meet with archaeologist Laird Niven
and archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan,
to get their analysis
of the artifact found one day ago on Lot 5.
So it's a ramrod guide for a musket.
This would be in there, and the ramrod
would come through the front tube,
this would be the center tube.
And be held in with a third one.
[narrator]
known as a musket, was invented in Europe
near the beginning of the 16th century.
Fire!
[narrator]
as a ramrod guide
was designed for aiding the operator
in the loading of lead or stone projectiles
into the muzzle of the musket.
And what type of musket?
That's the million-dollar question.
Exactly.
If it's a musket,
that would make it pretty old then.
Yeah.
-Anywhere from 1600s to 1800s. -Yeah.
-You gotta love that patina. -Yeah.
That tells you it's really old.
[Laird] The only strange thing
is that there's a little tiny hole here
which I haven't seen in others.
It seems fancy.
Well, it'd be nice to know... French, British...
-Mm-hm. -Yeah.
You know, some nationality to that.
-You want to see the CT image? -[Rick] Sure.
[narrator]
Emma processed the artifact
using a SkyScan 1273 CT scanner.
By emitting non-destructive X-ray radiation,
the device can penetrate
built-up corrosion on objects,
revealing clear 3D images of them
along with their finer details.
[Emma] It's just loading.
[Rick] The little hole just turned big.
-That's a clean scan. -[Emma] Yeah.
[both] Yeah.
[Laird] See in the top right?
-[Rick] Yeah. -[Craig] Ooh, yeah.
[Rick] It looks like there's Roman numerals.
We get those crazy Roman numerals
-in the U-shape structure. -Yeah.
The only thing I can think of is that could be, uh...
it could be a regiment, I guess.
-It's an odd thing to mark. -[Craig and Rick] Yeah.
Those look like V-1-1-1-1, doesn't it?
-We saw that in Smith's Cove. -Right.
-On U-shaped structures. -Yeah.
[narrator]
Rick, Marty and Craig's late partner, Dan Blankenship,
built an earthen coffer dam
that surrounded Smith's Cove
on the eastern end of Oak Island
in order to drain the area
and look for evidence
of a legendary flood tunnel system
that acted as a booby trap
for the original money pit.
Dan was amazed to uncover a 65-foot-long
U-shaped wooden structure
that featured Roman numerals
and which he believed was constructed
as a surrounding barrier for the flood system.
There's probably a ramrod
waiting for us somewhere in that area.
[narrator]
along with the other features
and artifacts that have been found on Lot 5
may be connected
to a 1746 ship's log
which detailed how treasure was securely buried
in a deep pit on a wooded island?
[foreboding music playing]
[Rick]
carved on that little bit of ramrod guide,
it brought back memories
certainly of the U-shaped structure.
We've never found Roman numerals before
on any other artifact, to date.
And to have them found here,
I think the two are strongly connected.
[Gary]
This has given us hope,
that there's more finds on Lot 5.
I say we give it another shot.
I want to find the rest of it.
-I'm in. -Okay.
All right. Good luck.
-Thank you, Laird. -Thanks, Laird.