Iron and lead strap (chest/box)

About This Artifact

The Iron and Lead Strap was recovered from the Lot 5 round stone feature on Oak Island during the Season 11 excavation, and examined in the Oak Island lab during Season 11 Episode 12, "Digging Back In" (January 30, 2024).

The strap was found in the same sifting context as the decorative copper fragments identified as having come from a small jewelry chest. Blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge of the Ross Farm Museum examined the iron pieces and identified them as box straps rather than barrel hoops, supporting the interpretation that the assemblage represents a chest or small storage container rather than a cask. The thickness and forging characteristics were consistent with hardware used to bind heavy trunks of the period.

Emma Culligan performed X-ray fluorescence analysis on the strap and reported lead sitting on top of one of the iron pieces. In Culligan's assessment, the presence of lead as a surface deposit on iron is a characteristic feature of English-manufactured iron from the 1600s through the early 1700s, a residue of the smelting and hammering processes in use at British forges during that period. The lead is not part of the iron alloy itself but a worked-in surface trace, which is why the artifact carries the iron-and-lead designation despite being predominantly iron in composition.

Alex Lagina observed that the resulting date range aligned with the theory presented to the team by Scott Clarke connecting Lot 5 to Sir William Phips, the English colonial governor who recovered substantial treasure from the wreck of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de la Concepción in 1687.

The strap has not been laboratory dated through carbon analysis of any associated organic material or through independent metallurgical study beyond the XRF reading. The 1600s to early 1700s dating rests on Carmen Legge's identification of the strap typology and Emma Culligan's XRF interpretation of the lead surface deposit.