Charles Barkhouse arrives at the Garden Shaft where Roger Fortin reports the final set is being installed but not yet finished. Roger confirms that they punched a hole in the north corner and the ground there is softer than in the other three corners, consistent with the team's belief that a tunnel runs beneath the shaft and west into the Baby Blob. A few days later Marty Lagina and Charles return to find more movement in a cracked timber. Dumas suspects they are close to a flooded structure and will install steel casing before the final set goes in. On Lot 5, Marty meets with archaeologist Laird Niven, who has been removing rocks from the ring that surrounds the stone pit. Pottery recovered from the feature went out of style in the 1750s, and the pit sits close to where the team found a Roman barter token and a half Roman coin. When Marty asks whether similar stone pits have been found elsewhere in Nova Scotia, Laird and Helen Sheldon agree they know of none.
In the swamp, Steve Guptill, Gary Drayton, and Billy Gerhardt work to determine whether the stone ramp connects the pathway to the paved feature dated to 1200 A.D. Once Billy reaches flat cobble, Steve checks elevations and finds the lower edge sits a foot below sea level while the area above is only four inches below, consistent with a sloping surface. Gary pulls a square-shanked fastener from the spoils that he dates to before the 1800s, and Billy recommends using a hydrovac to expose the ramp more clearly. The following day, after the hydrovac work is complete, Craig Tester, Laird, Dr. Ian Spooner, and Billy return to examine the ramp and collect samples for dating. Ian recovers a stick from beneath a small rock that can be sent for analysis.
In Camerano, Italy, Rick Lagina and the team tour underground caves with Emiliano Sacchetti and Alberto Recanatini, who has been mapping the system for over 50 years. The Camerano Caves date back more than 2,500 years: the Piceni are believed to have created them around 600 B.C., and the area became part of the Roman Empire in 290 B.C. During the 12th to 14th centuries the caves served as a Knights Templar stronghold, and Emiliano explains the entrance was modeled after the Holy Sepulchre and dates to the 13th century. Alberto notes that after the Templars were dissolved, surviving members dug underground places to gather. The group moves to the Burchiani Cave, also known as the Venus Cave, where guide Marco Deseriis explains this is one of the oldest caves in Camerano at roughly 20 meters below street level. A section of the cave system matches the shape of the lead cross found on Oak Island in 2017, and Corjan Mol shows Rick a goose-paw symbol like one seen earlier in Liverpool, Nova Scotia.
The team then visits the Grotte Simonetti in Osimo with Professor Fabrizio Bartoli, a historian and modern-day Knight Templar. The cave system stretches roughly 30 kilometers and was first created almost 2,000 years ago before being reestablished as a Templar stronghold around 1160 A.D. During the 14th century it is believed to have served as a refuge for surviving members of the order. Doug Crowell discovers a large carving similar to one Rick saw at the Templar prison in Domme in 2017. Alex Lagina finds a symbol that appeared on the HO stone and was also observed the previous year in Portugal, believed to represent gold. Rick points out a crescent moon that has likewise appeared in Domme, Portugal, and on the Overton Stone.
The team meets with archaeoastronomer and astrophysicist Professor Adriano Gaspani for his analysis of when Nolan's Cross was created. By studying stellar positions against the placement of the boulders, Gaspani identifies six bright stars that align with the cross: Capella, Arcturus, Antares, Bellatrix, Alphard, and Fomalhaut. Their alignment yields an epoch of 1200 A.D. Doug tells Gaspani this matches the dating of the stone platform in the swamp and aligns with Zena Halpern's proposed Templar voyage of 1179. In a War Room video conference connecting the Italy group with the team at home, Alex shares photos of the carvings, Billy describes the ramp he uncovered in the swamp, and Rick reports that Gaspani believes there are stellar alignments encoded in Nolan's Cross.
