About This Artifact
Multiple large stones with drilled holes found at various locations across Oak Island, believed to be survey markers placed by whoever originally laid out the island's structures. The stones have been identified at Smith's Cove, north of the Money Pit, and on Lot 15, and their positions appear to correspond to sight lines connecting key features on the island.
During Season 3, engineers Mike and Sean Harold presented research from their late relative, Oak Island treasure hunter Laverne Johnson, who from 1959 to 1963 theorized that sight lines between two drilled stones, one at Smith's Cove and one north of the Money Pit, intersected with a line from a drilled stone at the Cave-In Pit to point toward the true treasure location approximately 280 feet north of the Money Pit. Johnson believed the Money Pit was a decoy and that the real deposit lay at a shallower depth along these survey lines.
During Season 8, archaeologists Laird Niven, Aaron Taylor, and David MacInnes uncovered a large flat stone with a beveled edge and a drilled hole on Lot 15, near the mysterious stone walls they were excavating. Surveyor Steve Guptill inspected the find and suggested it resembled an old survey marker connected to drilled stones found elsewhere on the island. MacInnes concluded the flat stone had been placed before the walls beside which it was found. Christopher Morford later incorporated the drilled stones into his analysis of Nolan's Cross during Season 11, tracing a sightline from Cone C through Cone A and along drilled marker stones on Lots 15 and the island's interior, proposing that the Templars placed them as a navigational guide to the treasure.
Historical Context
Historical finds
Where It Was Found
Found at Various locations — Oak Island, Nova Scotia, Canada.
