About This Artifact
A large hand-forged iron spike recovered by metal detection expert Gary Drayton from deep sand at the corner of the slipway excavation on the border of Lots 4 and 5. Drayton and archaeologist Laird Niven took it for a possible cribbing spike from a wooden structure that has since rotted away.
Archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan scanned the spike in the CT scanner. She described it as heavily worn, hand-forged wrought iron, clean but with some impurities, which she read as early-refined bloomery iron from the mid-1600s to mid-1700s. Its composition is very similar to that of the square-shanked nail found beside it, and she reported the iron as the closest match so far to the ironwork from the Maine homestead of Sir William Phips that the lab analyzed in 2023.
Historical Context
Gary Drayton; Laird Niven; Emma Culligan; The Curse of Oak Island Season 14 Episode 1
Where It Was Found
Found at Lot 5 shoreline, deep in the sand at the corner of the slipway excavation. Location: the shoreline areas of Oak Island.
