About This Carved Stone
An inscribed stone discovered by gyroscope operator Tory Martin while assembling his equipment near the Money Pit during Season 6. Martin noticed the stone lying in the woods by the old well, and when Rick Lagina, Craig Tester, and Dan Henskee examined it they found a flat surface too straight to be natural, with raised ridges and linear carvings resembling Roman numerals.
Geologist Terry Matheson identified the rock as metamorphosed graywacke and concluded it appeared to have been worked and possibly decorated. The team arranged for Rob Hyslop and Ryan Levangie of Azimuth Consulting Limited to laser-scan the stone using a Trimble CX scanner, with talcum powder applied to increase surface reflectivity. The preliminary three-dimensional model revealed undulations and markings requiring further digital enhancement.
The following week, Hyslop and Levangie presented the completed 3D scan in the War Room. The analysis confirmed a perfectly flat surface too straight to be natural and a series of markings with regular linear spacing perpendicular to the flat face. Doug Crowell identified the characters as possibly futhark, a runic language used by Germanic tribes and in Scandinavia dating back to the first century A.D. Alex Lagina and Paul Troutman subsequently traveled to the Yarmouth County Museum to examine the Yarmouth Runic Stone, discovered in 1812, whose most widely accepted translation reads "Leif to Erik," suggesting a Viking connection to Nova Scotia and a possible context for runic writing found on Oak Island.
Historical Context
Money Pit area
Where It Was Found
Found near the Money Pit — the original 1795 excavation shaft on Oak Island, Nova Scotia.
