This week, we were treated to two hours of Oak Island adventures! Following the premier of episode 22, "Abbey Road," was a new episode of the spinoff, Drilling Down, which finds host Matty Blake learning what archaeoastronomy is and how the Fellowship is utilizing this discipline to help solve the 229-year-old Oak Island mystery.
RUNDOWN Due to the flooding of the Garden Shaft, Dumas Contracting, Ltd. is no longer able to deepen the construct. It was noted in a previous episode that they could still search for an adjacent tunnel but at a more shallow depth. Based on data collected by geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner and his colleague Dr. Fred Michel, the team is further narrowing their search for the aforementioned tunnel. The data in question is analyses of water samples taken from the area west of the Garden Shaft which yielded evidence of precious metals including silver and gold. While Marty Lagina oversees work on Oak Island, his brother Rick is leading his globetrotting team featuring his nephews Alex Lagina and Peter Fornetti, and researcher/historian Doug Crowell. Their first stop is in Morimondo, Italy where they meet up with researcher Emiliano Sacchetti, archaeoastronomer Prof. Adriano Gaspani, and translator Marzia Sebastiani. They rendezvous at Morimondo Abbey, established by Cistercian monks in the 12th century. Much to their surprise and delight, they right away found symbols matching those found on Oak Island. Rick points out an image that curiously depicts oak leaves. Their next stop is in Bianzano, Italy. Here, the team meets up at Bianzano Castle, built by the Knights Templar in the 13th century as a Templar HQ. Prof. Gaspani explains that Bianzano Castle, like Nolan's Cross on Oak Island, was contructed using the same astronomical alignments, based on the Cygnus constellation. While touring the castle, Crowell point out another symbol not unlike one found in Nova Scotia; an eight-pointed star, which Prof. Gaspani notes is called Polaris, was previously found depicted in the Bedford Barrens petroglyph in Bedford, Nova Scotia. The same symbol was also depicted by the Mi'kmaq. A text known as the Cremona Document, co-authored by 12th century Templar Ralph de Sudeley, describes the Templars' discovery of religious artifacts under the Temple of King Solomon in Jerusalem. The text also describes a device called an abetor which was used for navigating and constructing by tracking stars. Prof. Gaspani presents a replica abetor he made and demonstrates how it would have been used by the Templars to travel to Oak Island and build Nolan's Cross. From Italy, Rick and Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, and Doug Crowell travel to the Netherlands where they meet author/researcher Corjan Mol and cultural historian Jacquo Silvertant. They explore the 12th century Caestert stone quarry, outside the city of Maastricht, where Mol believes the Templars once hid their treasures. Throughout these underground passageways, the ceilings were decorated with Templar symbols, some of which had been seen on or around Oak Island as well as other locations around the world including Portugal, France, and Italy. Mol says these are "breadcrumbs" which the Templars left behind. Rick also notes that it can't just be random to find similar imagery in multiple places, these places must all be connected. What are the Templars telling us? AS ABOVE, SO BELOW In the new episode of Drilling Down, "Written in the Stars," host Matty Blake discusses the discipline of archaeoastronomy and how it is helping the team uncover the secrets of Oak Island's history. Prof. Gaspani defines archaeoastronomy as dating a site using stellar targets. The field relates to anthropology, archaeology, and astronomy. From it we can learn how ancient cultures used celestial bodies to build sites such as Stonehenge and the Pyramids. In 2018, astrophysicist Dr. Travis Taylor (of Ancient Aliens and The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch fame) was the first to introduce archaeoastronomy to the Fellowship when he visited Oak Island. In his presentation, he aligned stars of the constellation Taurus with various points on the island. While trekking across the island, the team found large boulders in the same locations Dr. Taylor suggested was a point of astronomical alignment with Taurus. I find it fascinating that celestial bodies can be used to put a date on when a site was constructed. The stars are always in motion, and "rewinding" them allows researchers to determine how long ago they were in direct alignment with archaeological sites. CONCLUSION The history of Oak Island is not just written in the pages of ship logs and Templar maps. It is not just written in the carvings and imagery adorning strongholds and prison cells. It is also written in the stars. By themselves, they only give us a glimpse of history, but like a puzzle, we will see the full picture once we put the pieces together. The Fellowship is closer than anyone has ever been in solving the 229-year-old mystery, utilizing technology and disciplines which the teams who came before them did not have. As Rick Lagina said, and I paraphrase, "It's an Old World treasure wrapped in an Old World mystery." Perhaps Oak Island's questions cannot be answered on the island itself, but rather in Europe. After all, Europe was the heart of the conflict: it's where the Knights Templar were persecuted and it's the home they had to flee. Again paraphrasing Lagina: the Templars were not just running for freedom, they were running to protect something. What they were protecting, as I've noted before, must have been so valuable they went through the trouble of constructing an elaborate tunnel system and features on an island thousands of miles from home.
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