In Season 3, Episode 3 of ‘The Curse of Oak Island’, Craig Tester and his business
partner, Alan Kostrzewa, met with Oak Island theorist Robert Markus in a bar in Traverse
City, Michigan. Markus explained that, upon studying books, maps, and historical records,
he came to espouse the popular theory that the Knights Templar buried the treasure of
King Solomon on Oak Island. Like most who subscribe to the Templar theory of Oak Island,
Markus believes that this treasure was first brought from the Holy Land to France. Following
the suppression of the Templar Order in 1307, the treasure was shipped to Scotland. Finally,
in 1398, Scottish-Orcadian nobleman Henry Sinclair, using routes pioneered by Norse
Vikings, brought the treasure across the Atlantic Ocean and buried it on Oak Island.
Markus’ theory is unique in that it puts a new spin on several old artifacts long associated
with the mysteries of the Atlantic Northeast. The first of these is the Wilkins Map, a mysterious
treasure map which appeared in the back of British journalist Harold T. Wilkins’ 1935
book ‘Captain Kidd and his Skeleton Island’. In 1937, this book was picked up by R.V. Harris,
a lawyer from Halifax, Nova Scotia, who had worked for several Oak Island treasure hunters
over the years. Harris noticed that Wilkins’ map bore an uncanny resemblance to Oak Island
and picked out several features on it which corresponded perfectly with Oak Island landmarks.
The lawyer showed the map to Oak Island treasure hunter Gilbert Hedden, who was astonished
by the many points of similarity between his island and that depicted in Wilkins’ map.
On a hunch, Hedden followed the cryptic instructions on Wilkins’ map using landmarks on Oak Island
and rediscovered the stone triangle on the South Shore Cove. This discovery convinced
Hedden that Wilkins’ map was a genuine Oak Island treasure map, prompting him to write
a letter to Wilkins in which he voiced his suspicion. After a long correspondence with
Harold Wilkins, which culminated in Hedden travelling to England to meet with the British
journalist, the treasure hunter learned that the map was the product of Wilkins’ imagination,
loosely based upon his memory of four 17th Century treasure maps said to have once belonged
to pirate Captain William Kidd, which were owned at that time by an antiques collector
named Hubert Palmer. To learn more about this strange tale, please check out my video ‘New
Oak Island Discovery: Another Wrinkle in the Wilkins Map’.
Contrary to Wilkins’ confession, Robert Markus believes that the basis for the Wilkins
map was a chart drawn up by brothers Nicolo and Antonio Zeno, medieval Renaissance Italian
noblemen connected with another strange document known as the Zeno Narrative. The book popularly
referred to today as the Zeno Narrative was published in 1558 by a Venetian historian
named Nicolo Zeno. In his book, Zeno maintained that his ancestors, the famous Italian Nicolo
and Antonio Zeno (Nicolo being his namesake), sailed to the New World in 1398 (a century
before Christopher Columbus’ first voyage) on behalf of a mysterious nobleman named ‘Prince
Zichmni’. Some theorists, Robert Markus included, have argued that Prince Zichmni
was actually the aforementioned Henry Sinclair. Markus believes that Henry Sinclair and the
Zeno brothers, upon arriving in the New World, left behind petroglyphs as evidence of their
presence, and as treasure maps leading to Oak Island, where Sinclair buried the Templar
treasure. The first of these glyphs was the Boat Stone located in present-day Westford,
Massachusetts- a 300-pound, oval-shaped, 2-foot long granite boulder inscribed with a picture
of what appears to be a 14th Century sailing ship (which some researchers have suggested
represents a Viking merchant ship, or knarr), an arrow, and the number ‘184’.
This boulder was discovered in 1932 by construction workers who decided to leave it in the possession
of landowner William Wyman, on whose land they had found it. Wyman kept the stone in
a shed until the 1960s, when one of his descendants donated it to a museum.
Some researchers have speculated that the Boat Stone was carved by 14th Century Viking
explorers, who are believed by some to have had a presence in the area. The presence of
the Arabic numbers ‘184’ on the stone, however, may refute this theory; the only
numeric system known to have been used by the Vikings is the runic pentimal system (although
it should be mentioned that in runic Viking inscriptions, numbers are typically spelled
out as whole words). Interestingly, the Boat Stone is not the only
strange archaeological object from the Westford area. Another stone carving found in Westford,
Massachusetts, known as the Westford Knight or the Sinclair Rock, depicts a figure which
has been described as a Native American warrior, a Norse Viking, and a medieval knight. In
1832 in Fall River, a Massachusetts city located about 100 km southwest of Westford, a skeleton
clad in what appeared to be brass armour was discovered in a sandbank. Various theorists
have identified the skeleton as everything from a Native American chief to an ancient
Phoenician, Carthaginian, or Egyptian mariner. Robert Markus and other theorists take these
finds as evidence of the supposed 1398 voyage of Henry Sinclair and the Zeno brothers.
Robert Markus believes that the number 184 inscribed on the Boat Stone connects that
artifact with the Zeno brothers. Specifically, he attempts to connect the number with the
last line of directions on the Wilkins map, namely “7 by 8 by 4”. Although Gilbert
Hedden, back in the 1930s, believed the first two lines of directions on Wilkins’ map
corresponded with landmarks on Oak Island, he was never able to make any sense of the
third and last line. Markus believes that these numbers represent leagues, and that
Wilkins, in creating his own map, misremembered one of the numbers on the Zeno maps. Specifically,
he believes Wilkins mistook a 1 for a 7, which would change the last line of directions to
“1 by 8 by 4.” Robert Markus maintains that the glyph on
the Boat stone is an instruction to travel 184 leagues, or 1022.3 kilometres, up the
Atlantic coast to what is now the town of Overton, Nova Scotia, the site of the next
clue in Markus’ theory. On one of Overton’s beaches lies the Overton Stone, a massive
granite boulder on the face of which is carved a stylized Christian cross, a crisscrossed
pair of tobacco leaves, an eagle feather, and a crescent moon. Viewers may recall that
this glyph featured in Season 3, Episode 4 of ‘The Curse of Oak Island’. The carving
on the Overton Stone, Markus argues, is a map directing the reader northwest to Mahone
Bay, where Sinclair and the Zeno brothers carved their third and last glyph, a mysterious
feature known today as the Norumbega Vinland Stone. The stone is inscribed with what appears
to be a copy of a section of the Ramsund Carving, a Swedish runestone carved in around 1030
by Norse Vikings which depicts a scene from the Volsunga Saga, a Norse saga featuring
the legendary dragon-slaying hero Sigurd. When facing the carving on the face of the
Norumbega Vinland Stone, one gets an excellent view of Mahone Bay beyond. Markus suggests
that the placing of this stone was meant to inform the prospective treasure hunter that
something of interest lies in Mahone Bay. Specifically, he believes the treasure hunter
is meant to search Mahone Bay for an island similar to the one depicted in the Wilkins
Map, which he maintains is Oak Island. When the hypothetical treasure hunter for
whom the Zeno brothers’ map was intended finally locates Oak Island, Markus believes
that their next step, as indicated by the instructions in the Wilkins map, would be
to find some sort of significant ‘tree’. Markus believes this tree was the oak tree
which stood at the edge of the Money Pit. From there, Markus believes the treasure hunter
would have to follow the second line of instructions on the map, namely ‘30 SW, 14 N Tree’.
However, since the compass on the map was upside down, the treasure hunter would have
to follow the instructions ‘upside down’ and backwards, beginning with the tree and
working his way back. First, the treasure hunter would walk 14 rods
south and then 30 rods northeast (a rod being an old English unit of measurement equivalent
to 16.5 feet, or roughly 5 metres). It is at this location, Markus believes, that the
real Oak Island treasure lies at a depth of 40 feet.
In Season 3, Episode 3 of ‘The Curse of Oak Island’, the Fellowship of the Dig located
the treasure site according to Markus’ theory and excavated it with a bulldozer. The crew
dug to a depth of 15 feet, finding little of interest aside from what appeared to be
blue clay and some sort of underground watercourse. The crew decided to postpone the excavation
for the time being, agreeing that they might return to it in the future.
Thanks for watching! If you enjoyed this video, please like and subscribe.