Forest Axe Heads (3)

About This Tool

Three hand-forged single-bit axe heads were discovered in close proximity on Lot 32 by Gary Drayton and Peter Fornetti during a metal detecting survey filmed for Season 8. The lot sits near the southwestern corner of the swamp, between an interpreted ship's wharf and the rectangular anomaly later identified on neighbouring Lot 30. Drayton noted that the axe heads resembled the rigging axe he and Jack Begley had found on Lot 15 in the season premiere, and suggested the concentration of three heads in such a small area could indicate a former work camp.

Archaeologist Laird Niven examined the finds on site and confirmed they were not modern. He identified them as forest axes, lightweight tools used for cutting limbs off trees rather than felling whole trunks. Niven noted that the cluster was consistent with other early-1700s finds recovered from nearby Lot 15 earlier in the same season, which had included an axe head, ox shoes, and other hand-forged metal.

The same episode featured a War Room presentation by Corjan Mol and Chris Morford expanding on their geometric research from Season 7. Superimposing Nicolas Poussin's painting The Shepherds of Arcadia onto a map of Oak Island, they demonstrated that a line drawn along the column of Nolan's Cross aligns with the Royal Way of the Palace of Versailles and, when extended further, intersects the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Using a system of concentric circles and a pentagram centred on the swamp, Mol and Morford identified two points on the island where they believed treasure may lie. The narrator suggested a possible connection between the Lot 11 depression identified by their analysis and the cluster of axe heads on Lot 32.