The Curse of Oak Island: Ancient Military Token Discovered on the Island (Season 11)

More flags!
I see Gary.
Yeah, mate, this is the coin zone.
Mate, this is the treasure zone.

Rick Lagina and Gary Dron arrive on Lot 5, located on the western side of the island.
They are returning to search the area where they have previously discovered five ancient coins, three of which are of Roman origin and have been determined to be approximately 2,000 years old.
And I got to be honest, a couple of these flags sound like they could be coins.
That would be fantastic.
There you go!

All right, see what we got.
Right, first one up.
That ain’t bad.
Good sounding target, mate, just there.
That’s not what we’re looking for.
No, not unless it’s on top of a treasure chest.
Let’s see.
Yeah, still in a hole.
That’s iron, isn’t it?
No, where she be?
Yep, in my hand.

Now we both know that was down there.
That’s deep.
Target!
[Music]
What we got, mate?
Is that a bit of ancientness?
Is there?
Oh!
Oh, it’s an old coin!
It looks like a really old coin!
Mate, look at that!
Oh, that is thick!
Yeah, that is thick!
Mate, that is beautiful.

Wow, look at that!
There’s no mistaking that.
That ain’t no button.
Could Gary and Rick be correct that they have found another potentially ancient coin on Lot 5?
If so, could it offer more evidence that this area may be directly connected to the 228-year-old treasure mystery?

We know, mate, when we pull those ancient coins out in this area before, they’ve just got that look and feel about them.
Here you go, mate.
Oh, is that heavy?
Yeah, that is.
And that baby was down there.
You know what?
What the heck happened here?

Gary, yeah, I mean, there are some secrets still in this area.
Here, as the work on Lot 5 continues to evolve, I continue to be puzzled by it.
We have always sought to find connective tissue between the lots and the original depositional work, and so I think that’s the hope on Lot 5.
Once all of the artifacts are analyzed, then you will be able to say with some sort of clarity that yes, this presents an answer that goes back to the lab.
Yeah, that goes back to the lab, mate.
So we have got to put this in the bag.
That’s cool. Very cool.
Bloody fantastic!

The following morning, so Gary and I happened to be out on Lot 5, up into the areas where we had found the Roman coins.
Right, good area.
Well, we came across this.

Rick joins Marty in the interpretive sense for a meeting with archaeologist Lar Nen and archo-metallurgist Emma Culligan, who have both had the opportunity to examine the artifact discovered one day ago on Lot 5.
We were ecstatic when this came out of the ground.
We thought, wow, this is really something.

I mean, Lar, what do you think it is?
When I first saw it, I knew it’s lead.
Right, so I discounted coin.
My best guess was that it was a bag seal.
No, another one of those?
Yeah, dating back to as early as the 13th century.
Lead bag seals were fasteners used across Europe to package large quantities of both industrial and military goods.

Three years ago, the team discovered a lead bag seal just west of the swamp on Lot 32.
Incredibly, lead isotope testing indicated it was a compositional match not only to the 14th-century lead barter token found one year ago on Lot 5 but also to the 14th-century lead cross that was unearthed at Smith’s Cove in 2017.
So what made you come to a bag seal assessment?
Um, it was that little cut section there because bag seals are two lead circles brought together and then stamped.

Well, I’m guessing we have results from the machines over here and our own Emma.
I do.
Earlier this morning, Emma analyzed the new discovery made on Lot 5 using the X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, a device that emits non-destructive radiation in order to determine the elemental composition of objects.

So this is the scanning XRF.
So it is lead.
It has very little impurities, but it does have some iron impurities and a little bit of copper.
And I did get a report on another bag seal that you guys found.
Mhm.
And it doesn’t match with that, so I can say that it’s not exactly the same composition.
But the most interesting part is the image on the front surface.
There are definitely letters, that’s for sure.
Yeah, and the first letter that was obvious to us was the K.
Oh, those letters.
E? Is it?
I see an E.
Yep, this should be K E R.
And we were having a hard time tracking down what C K E R was, but we were able to find an exact match.

This is the example I found, and it says “I Lloyd” on the top, and the I is actually “J I Lloyd Packers,” and on the bottom, it says London.
So this is a cloth packers seal from the 1700s.
They were the people that got the cloth and literally packed them into the bales.
Oh, and then sealed them.
The bale that was sealed was about half a ton.
Wow, so half a ton!

I mean, would the military use such a thing?
If you had a bunch of soldiers, they need cloth.
Yeah, and ironically, this company was listed as Army Packers.
Oh, so there’s a direct connection with the military.
Wow!
I haven’t been able to find a great date for the company.
We found one entry from 1808 giving their address in London, but I think it’s previous.
Why do you think it’s older?
It was the use of “I” instead of “J.”
It’s “I Lodge,” and the “I” is for John, so that usage went out of fashion.
Yeah, “J”s came into use in like 1524, so it’s an older use.
It’s an artifact in itself then that would imply that it could be very old, much older still, potentially means anytime between 1500 and, let’s say, 1800.

This bag seal arrived on Oak Island, is that fair?
Yes, a bag seal designed for packaging large quantities of goods for the British military, dating to as early as the 1500s and found on Lot 5.
Because the team has found artifacts and structures on Lot 5 that date back as much as 2,000 years, could this bag seal have been left by people who hid something of great value on Oak Island prior to 1795?
Or was it left by someone who came here in order to search for the fabled treasure?

Look, is this interesting?
Yes!
Does it provide pathways to learn more?
Sure!
Find out about that company.
Well, and there’s a lot of stuff, Rick, adding up to saying something dramatically different than homesteading.
It does, and then the military component.
Okay, Rick, go grab Gary and find some more stuff.
Let’s figure this thing out!
I agree!