Lock with cross-shaped keyhole (Nolan)

About This Artifact

In June 1992 Fred Nolan showed Crooker a photograph of a lock which he believed was associated with the cross formation of boulders he had discovered in 1981. The lock has a cross-shaped keyhole. When the key is turned, the face of the lock opens and a second, smaller keyhole appears behind it. Nolan did not disclose where he found the lock. Crooker suggests it may have been among the objects Nolan recovered from a hole dug near the north shore at Joudrey's Cove, where he had found dishes and cutlery about six feet down, but this is Crooker's inference and not Nolan's statement. Locks with decorative or cruciform keyholes and hidden secondary keyholes were made across Europe from the late medieval period into the nineteenth century, so the form alone does not date the piece. The lock is distinct from the folding skeleton key with a cross-shaped blade later shown to the Lagina team by Tom Nolan, though the two objects may belong together. The photograph Nolan showed Crooker has not been published, and the lock's present location is not recorded.