Original subtitles

Tonight, on The Curse of Oak Island.

This takes the information hunt to another level. On his shield, he's got

this cross, which is exactly like the H.O. Stone.

Wow. That's the earliest stuff we've found so far. There was a reference to

your family name. Are there Templar connections?

There obviously is a connection.

They're trying to relay some sort of information.

There are secrets behind that wall. This is a Templar cross.

These don't exist anywhere else. They only exist here. It's what we came for,

really.

There is an island in the North Atlantic Where people have been looking for an

incredible treasure for more than 200 years So far they have found a stone

slab with strange symbols carved into it 17th century coins even pieces

of human bone to date six men have died trying to solve the mystery

and according to legend

One more will have to die before the treasure can be found.

After months of planning and weeks of exploratory drilling, the Laginas and

their partners, with the help of an expert team from Irving Equipment

Limited, are finally starting to dig a large 50-inch wide hole into what they

believe is the location of the original Oak Island money pit.

Good morning.

Good morning.

So what's going on today, Vanessa?

So you can see right now they're lining up the casing so that they can bolt it

together. And then as soon as they get this going on, we'll start excavating

out. Great. We have got the first 10 feet, so now I think we're ready for

Dave and the loader. Oh, that's good. Yeah.

Going down a little bit.

Good. All right. Well, they got that can lined up and going to bolt it together.

Yep.

So far, the shaft has reached a depth of only 10 feet, slowed down by the size of

the massive steel caissons.

It will take at least another four to five days before the team is able to

reach its initial target depth of 150 feet.

Roughly the same depth.

where treasure hunters frederick blair and william chappell first discovered

evidence of an elusive wooden box containing traces of gold a box which

they dubbed the chapel vault this year my anxiety is

a little high is it yeah because i know we're gonna find something definitely oh

yeah perfect while waiting for the team from irving to reach target depth Rick

Lagina has journeyed some 3,000 miles across the ocean to Paris, France.

I bet you guys never thought Oak Island would lead to Paris. No.

Traveling with two of his nephews, Alex Lagina and Peter Fernetti, Rick is eager

to get a first-hand look at some recently acquired information.

Information which he hopes can help validate an ancient treasure map first

presented to him one year ago by historian and researcher... Zena

Halpern.

Rick's curiosity was further piqued when he recently received information linking

the Rochefoucauld family, whose name appears in the upper right-hand corner

of Zena's map, and a genealogy of families directly connected to Oak

Island.

Rochefoucauld. This is a really interesting family because this is a

family of crusader kings.

Following up on this clue, Rick then hired professional researcher and

translator Nicola Lewis to further investigate possible ties between the

Rochefoucauld family in France, the Knights Templar, and Oak Island.

I have been in touch with Sonia Matosian, who is a Rochefoucauld, and

she lives at La Rochefoucauld itself.

And I asked her if she would be willing to meet you and to show you around.

I would very much appreciate that.

Sounds great, Nicola. Looking forward to it.

Hi, Nicola. How are you? Hi, Rick. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to

meet you in person.

Nicola, nice to finally meet you in person.

And this is my nephew, Peter. Nice to meet you. Hi. Good.

So look, let's get on the train, sit down, get comfortable, and the three of

us very much look forward to what you have.

That would be great. So we should go and get the train right now. Absolutely.

While making their way by train, some 300 miles southwest to the town of

Chiron, France.

Rick and his nephews fill Nicola in on the progress they have made on Oak

Island so far this year, like the discovery of 17th century British coins,

bits of pottery found at a depth of 190 feet, a piece of parchment, along with

what appears to be a small sample of bookbinding.

and two fragments of human bone, one whose ancestors are European and another

that traces back to the Middle East.

But although the Laginas and their partners on Oak Island believe they are

closer than ever to finding the original money pit, they still don't know the

nature of what they may find or who put it there.

As pertaining to Rochefoucauld Castle, I mean, we very much look forward to going

there, but I think if you could fill us in on what we might expect, where your

research has led us, I think that's where we should start.

Yeah. The castle itself, it's absolutely ancient.

There are these chambers under the castle, big chambers and tunnels and

stuff with carvings and things like that.

I think these two would love to be down there.

Surely I'm thinking there's something down there.

Carvings give you information. Carvings are like a date on a coin, if you will.

It's credible evidence carved into a rock that lasts centuries.

One of the most exciting things would be a more solid connection between the

Templars and Oak Island.

So I think I did find a connection.

So that's the HO stone there.

and the carvings.

In 1921, treasure hunters working on Oak Island's northern shore discovered a

large boulder covered in mysterious carvings and inscriptions.

Believing it to be an indication that treasure might lie below it, they blew

it up with dynamite so that they could dig beneath it.

Unfortunately, nothing was ever found underneath the stone, and most of the

carvings that were etched on its surface were lost forever.

Most, that is, except for the one generally referred to as the HO Stone.

I found two Templar chapels in the Charente, in the area where we're going.

And one has more paintings.

It's a fantastic painting, and this is a Templar going off to fight.

But on his shield, he's got this cross, which is exactly like the HO stone, with

the cross in the middle and dots around the cross. Oh, yeah. Very similar.

Absolutely.

Templar crosses looking almost exactly like the HO stone?

Could these depictions found in 12th and 13th century Templar churches really be

related to the one found on Oak Island?

Now, a circle with a dot in it can mean eternity, but I wondered if it could

represent the ancient Greek O, and with the little dash in the middle, which is

theta, and that's the first letter of theos, meaning God.

It's a Christogram, in fact.

Dating back to the 4th century, a Christogram is an abbreviation or symbol

for Jesus Christ, and was commonly used in the Byzantine and medieval eras.

One of the oldest types is the Cairo Cross, which was later adopted by the

Knights Templar.

It is Nicholas' belief that the HO stone was written in Greek, with the H being

the symbol for Ada and the O representing Theos.

Could it be possible that the symbols on Oak Island's mysterious HO stone were

carved centuries ago by members of the Knights Templar?

You're indicating this is an ancient Greek representation.

This is not somebody who wandered over Oak Island and on a lark carved these

shapes into the rock. You would have to know what you're doing.

Yeah, it's actually quite uncanny, really.

I think we are going to find some very interesting bits of information. And for

me, this has always been and will continue to be an information hunt,

every bit as much as a treasure hunt.

I want some answers.

I think we all do.

Yeah. Let's make that happen.

As efforts to reach target depth continue at the Money Pit drill site...

Hey, Laird. Hey, how are you?

Welcome back.

Thank you.

Great to be back. It's a wonderful day to find something unique and powerful

and astounding. Absolutely. Marty Lagina.

along with Oak Island team members Dave Blankenship and Gary Drayton, have

invited local archaeologist Laird Niven to continue with their recent

investigation of a strange stone foundation on Lot 24, one of several

lots once owned by former American slave Samuel Ball.

So what we thought is we'd head back to the site over here and take direction

from you as you know how to archaeologically proceed.

OK. Well, let's go do it. And dig it.

Dig it, yeah.

The dirt isn't going to move itself, is it? Right.

Because Samuel Ball is considered one of Nova Scotia's most culturally

significant historical figures, the team was discouraged from digging on the site

until Rick and Marty could first obtain the proper permits from Nova Scotia's

Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage.

That's it.

What the heck is that?

I think we have to stop.

All right, Laird, we're ready to be coached. Okay.

This will be my first archaeological dig.

Kind of excited about it, actually. This is the very beginnings of one. Yeah.

As Marty and his team on Oak Island begin their archaeological examination

on Lot 24, Rick Lagina, along with his nephews Alex Lagina

and Peter Fernetti, have arrived at Rochefoucauld Castle with researcher

Nicola Lewis.

They are hoping to find evidence linking the Rochefoucauld family with the

mysterious map which was given to Rick one year ago by researcher Sina Halpern.

Do come in. Welcome to my home.

Representing the 42nd of 43 generations of the Rochefoucauld family,

Sonia Matosian serves as the curator of Chateau de la Rochefoucauld and is also

an authority on her family's ancient history.

Thank you for coming, and I'm sure that you'll appreciate the home because it

really is very remarkable.

And what else is very, very interesting, you'll go all the way down underneath

the castle.

It's built on a rock.

That's where our name comes from.

Foucault's Rock, La Rochefoucault.

And you'll find that you can walk underneath the whole castle.

It hasn't got any foundations.

It's just sitting on the rock.

Wow.

began as a large wooden fortification built in the year 980 as a means of

protecting its inhabitants from Viking invaders.

Over the next 500 years, it would continue to grow in size and is now

considered one of the greatest achievements of the French Renaissance.

Standing on ground that people have been walking on for a thousand years, as

we're walking in, I'm thinking, boy, who has set foot on this ground before me?

Kings, queens, perhaps Knights Templar. If Stone could talk, I could sit there

for eons listening to the stories.

Initially, we came here because of a map, a map that surfaced in the 1970s,

and there was a reference to your family name.

And I have a copy.

You will see the reference to your family's name at the top of the page.

we think there might be some sort of connection.

Well, there obviously is a connection.

There obviously is. Well, it can't not be, because otherwise the name wouldn't

be on the paper.

It begs the question from us that within the Rochefoucauld family, are there

Templar connections?

I've never heard of Templars in the family. It doesn't mean that there

weren't any. I've never heard of them. I have heard of the Crusades. They all

went to the Crusades.

So one can imagine.

that they had met each other, that they knew who was what, because obviously the

reason for the Templars was the Crusades.

But the Templars were more military, and the family was more religious.

But it doesn't mean that they didn't meet each other.

Yes.

Is it possible that the Knights Templar knew and fought alongside members of the

Rochefoucauld family during the Crusades?

If so, could the Templars have trusted this family enough to reveal to them the

location of a vast collection of valuable religious artifacts rescued

from the Holy Land and then perhaps hidden far below the surface of Oak

Island?

This family is a dynasty. It's extremely powerful, extremely influential, and

there's no way.

that the family did not have some sort of connection with the Templars.

Might that interaction have carried back once they came back from the Crusades? I

should think yes.

So this writing, though, I'm just wondering what you thought of the actual

writing. Is that translation accurately presented there, in your opinion?

He would have written it in slang if he hadn't been educated.

He would have written it in slang, in his slang, which comes from his country.

Here there's a certain slang. Ten miles away, it's different.

So you think the verbiage on there is slang?

The important people, the people, the nobility, knew how to speak French

perfectly. So it means he knows what he's talking about, but he can't write

it.

It is Sonia's assessment that the writing on Zina Halpern's map is in

slang, or what is commonly referred to... as Old French, which was widely

spoken between the 8th and 14th centuries.

This could mean that if the translator only knew Modern French, some of the

English translations on the map may be incorrect.

Can you look at this language on the map?

This is our understanding of it. Is this correct in your understanding of that

verbiage?

A little drink?

It

doesn't

mean a drink.

What now?

What's that?

It's nothing to do with drinks. Towards the west.

So what does it say?

Towards the west. Towards the west.

While searching for new leads at the Rochefoucauld Castle in Charente,

France, Rick Lagina has just been informed that the English translation on

the map given to him by researcher Zena Halpern is most likely incorrect.

Instead of reading this drawing from Monsieur Francois Rochefoucauld, a

little drink from Neustria, it states something significantly different.

So it says, this sketch for Mr. La Rochefoucauld, a little towards, a

little towards the west.

Does this new translation offer proof that the source of Zina Halpern's map

was not only very old, but was quite possibly the work of someone associated

with the Knights Templar?

And if so, does this validate the legends and theories that insists the

Knights Templar came to Oak Island sometime in the 14th century and hid an

incredible treasure there.

This takes the information hunt to another level. There's no question about

that. We're actually engaged in the process.

Zena's map and her research I find incredible. I want to prove that it's

authentic. And to that end, I think we've made some strides here.

But I don't know that we're there yet.

I'm going to give you the keys, and you're going to go all the way down to

Foucault's Rock.

I'm not going to go with you.

I'll be waiting with a cup of tea, which is much more agreeable than going down

to Foucault's Rock. You go down, and I'll wait for you next door. Thank you

very much.

As Rick, Alex, and Peter make their way to Foucault's Rock, back on Oak Island,

Rick's brother Marty continues his exploration of the mysterious area

recently discovered on property once owned.

by the former American slave, Samuel Ball.

All right, so here's the feature we found. Right. There's a concentration of

stones, fairly deep. That's what we're going to reveal.

We're going to err on the side of caution and take our time and excavate

down. So remove the loose soil, screen it, until we get what we hope is an

intact feature.

Okay. While Laird carefully brushes dirt and debris away from the stones, Marty

and Gary will set up a screen sifter to search through the spoils.

So we're just trying to establish some solid walls here.

Just trying to define the dig.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

What do you think you're unearthing here?

Well... Too early to tell.

Well, there was a gravel level that we hit, and now below that we're finding

rocks. It doesn't look natural to me.

It looks deposited by people to me.

I would think maybe a floor.

A floor?

On property once belonging to Samuel Ball?

In 1762, Oak Island was divided into 32 lots, each comprised of

four acres of land.

Because there was no causeway, and the only way to reach the island was by

boat, the land was not generally thought of as a place to live, but as a place to

farm. The absence of natural predators also made it an ideal place to keep

livestock. Even to this day, there are only three habitable structures on the

island, so the finding of a foundation on Samuel Ball's property is highly

unusual.

I don't see any metal here.

Oh, a little piece of pottery.

Excellent. Just a small piece.

You're not getting a lot of information off this. This might be early.

It looks like what we call Staffordshire slipware.

When you say this is early, what kind of time frame here?

So, say, mid-18th century to, like, 1770s.

And what tells you that that's old? The body and the glaze.

That's the earliest stuff we've found so far.

Yeah, that's great.

I was impressed, honestly. I mean, I was kind of rolling my eyes a little bit

when he gets down there with that trowel and, you know, makes a sift, all that

dirt. But, you know, by gosh, here comes a piece of pottery. There's just no way

we would have found it otherwise.

You can't metal detect pottery. What he's doing is working.

This is the layer where the ceramics are coming from. Yeah. And that's sitting on

top of those large rocks.

See how angular the rocks are?

Yeah.

That's unusual.

It's not glacial.

You know, it's amazing. The little bit of clearing we did here, look how pretty

this lot is.

It explains why it would be a nice home site or encampment or staging area.

And look at the command of the mainland right up there.

Even just a crossing point where people came across it. That's what I mean. If

somebody's trying to get here and you needed to know about it, this would be

the place to be.

Given that the foundation on Lot 24 is not large enough to have once been part

of a house or a dwelling, is it possible it was part of some other, less

permanent structure?

Like a lookout post.

One where someone on the island could keep a watchful eye on anyone

approaching from the ocean.

If so, could it have been built by someone who kept watch over the money

pit site?

Or someone who helped dig it?

For that answer, many more hours will be needed, and many more artifacts will

need to be uncovered.

Well, we're doing it right. I'm proud of that.

As Marty Lagina and the Oak Island team continue to search for clues on Lot 24,

Rick Lagina, along with his nephews and researcher Nicola Lewis, begin their

exploration of the caves located beneath Rochefoucauld Castle in France.

Rick is hoping to find carvings or other physical evidence linking the

Rochefoucauld family to the Knights Templar and possibly Oak Island.

So this must be...

Foucauld's Rock. Yes. We're inside of it.

Foucauld's Rock is the name of the natural stone foundation that the entire

castle rests upon.

It gets its name from Foucauldus, the first person to build a structure on

this site in the year 980 AD, more than 1,000 years ago.

Oh, this is...

The bottom.

Kind of eerie, isn't it? This is what the castle is built out of, this rock,

limestone.

I mean, literally, the castle arises from that stone, that rock.

Their family name comes from that, on the rock.

And, you know, you're standing on the very rock that her ancestors defended.

So it was a little piece of history.

You know, you reach out and touch it.

I've not seen any, no carvings. No.

It keeps going.

Will we find our way back? Find anything?

No, we didn't find any carvings, so... No. For something this old, I find it

quite strange that there's nothing.

Well, you would think that this is a perfect place, you know, perhaps with

supplies down here.

People are going to be down here.

Bottom line is I'm mystified there's no carvings down here.

Okay, should we head out?

Yeah. Okay.

So, how did you like... the famous Foucault's Rock.

It was impressive. It's amazing to think that he built his camp on the rock in

980. Yeah.

There's one thing that we noticed. We were looking for carvings in the caves,

and we didn't see any.

You know why?

No, I don't. Because in the 18th century, the people that lived in the

town used to tan leather.

And to be able to turn leather, they moved the bed of the river and made it

go under the castle.

And it's probably washed everything off.

Per our quest, you've been immensely helpful and we're very, very

appreciative. We hope that the information you've been kind enough to

give us will help us in our discovery.

We appreciate everything. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you for coming,

Jim.

The next day, Rick Lagina, along with his nephews, Alex Lagina and Peter

Fernetti, traveled to the village of Dome, France.

Mr. Glover, how are you? I'm Rick. They have arranged to meet with Templar

expert Jerry Glover in hopes of finding carvings or other physical evidence

linking Oak Island with various theories concerning the Knights Templar.

Jarius offered to get Rick and his nephews access to a 14th century French

fortress known as Dome Prison.

This is the guardhouse where the Templars were imprisoned.

The fortified stronghold known as Dome Prison was founded in 1281 by King

Philip III of France.

After the king's sudden death in 1285, his son, Philip IV, took the crown.

and soon fell into substantial debt to the Knights Templar, who were by then a

very powerful group of warrior monks who had amassed a substantial fortune while

serving as the paid bodyguards for Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy

Land.

We were trying to connect the Templars with Oak Island.

Well, you've come to the right place because it's always been assumed that

there are no original Templar writings or artworks. Their archive in Paris was

destroyed. But it happens that here at the guardhouse in Dom, they did

leave lots of traces of thoughts and sacred ideas in

the form of graffiti on the walls here. Great. Can we take a look? Absolutely.

Let's have a look.

Templars were imprisoned here.

They were not going to escape. Their lives were to end here.

And the three of us are quite excited to see what type of carvings and can they

be associated with Oak Island.

Come in.

Oh, wow.

It's an incredible structure.

So were they housed here for seven years?

Yes, they were, yes.

On Friday the 13th, 1307, King Philip IV ordered that the Templars be rounded

up and arrested on charges of heresy.

The captured Templars were brought to Dome, where they were imprisoned,

tortured, and later executed.

And you can see lots of evidence of how they passed their time, which was by

making carvings in the walls to sustain them spiritually.

How would they have carved this? They surely would not have had implements.

It's said that because their weapons would have been removed from them when

they were imprisoned, they would have had to have maybe used their teeth or

their fingernails.

This one has clearly been worked on over many hours, possibly by more than one

person. Over here is some of the most well-known carvings at Dom, this way.

Deep carvings of the Virgin Mary with the child Jesus, rather ordinary

crosses.

Are these...

crosses with the, what shall we call them, triangles on the end.

Is this solely a Templar construct?

Because this is what we've come to call a Templar cross.

But what is its origination?

I mean, is it exclusively Templar?

It isn't exclusively Templar, though it is closely associated with

the crusading orders.

Still Crusaders, but not exclusively Templar.

This one here, which is one termed the Grail, it's a symmetric, geometric

design. There seems to be the form possibly of a chalice in this section,

and the octagonal shape on the top with a branching form

inside it.

There's something that I see, and it may mean nothing.

What do you two see?

If you turn this around, what is that?

Well, it's reminiscent of the Rochefoucauld family coat of arms.

Exactly.

The Rochefoucauld family coat of arms?

Represented in a carving of the Holy Grail?

Could this be evidence of the close bond that existed between the Rochefoucauld

family? and the Knights Templar.

Also, the special dom cross with multiple

arms reflected horizontally and splaying into

branching forms almost plant-like.

Have you seen examples of that before?

No. These don't exist anywhere else. They only exist here.

It's so unusual, you have to think of what other sources of inspiration there

could have been for this. And I think it's possible, given their contacts in

the Holy Land, that this might have been inspired by the Kabbalistic tree of

life.

At a 14th century Templar prison in Dome, France, Rick Lagina, along with

his nephews Alex Lagina and Peter Fernetti, have just been shown in

ancient Templar carving of what appears to be the ancient Hebraic symbol known

as the Tree of Life.

We've seen that before.

Well, we've heard theories about that before.

It is widely believed that the Knights Templar were in the Middle East, not

only to protect Christian pilgrims during the Crusades, but to search for

and secure sacred religious objects and records.

According to researchers, the Templars, while in the Holy Land, studied and

adopted imagery from the Qabbalistic order of Judaism, including that

associated with the Tree of Life, which defines God and creation as an

interconnected series of ten intellectual and emotional attributes,

otherwise known as sephiroth.

It is this same symbol that many researchers believe can be found on Oak

Island. in the form of a mysterious collection of large boulders known as

Nolan's Cross.

Jerry referenced the carving, which he thought was a tree of life design.

And for me, I believe we have found some evidence on the island that perhaps

represents the tree of life.

So there's a direct connection there.

But could this carving, found on the walls of a 14th century prison, also be

connected to Oak Island another way?

Could it offer a clue as to how a human bone, found to be of Middle Eastern

origin, was recently discovered in borehole H8, some 160 feet deep below

ground? If this is the Tree of Life, then one could posit that they're trying

to relay some sort of information.

They know they're in trouble. They're imprisoned.

They know that the Templar

communities under siege by the Pope and the King.

Now, they obviously wanted to keep that symbolism alive.

I mean, you're in dire straits here. You're not going to record something on

these walls that doesn't associate with your belief system. Absolutely.

The Templars had nothing to lose at this point.

So what you have here is pure, unfettered thoughts.

It is widely believed that the Templars, having no hope of escape or survival,

were convinced that their beliefs and traditions would die with them.

For this reason, they carved symbols and effigies all over the walls of Dome

Prison, often using their own teeth as tools.

We'd like you to take a look at that stone, the HO stone, which was found on

Oak Island.

This was part of a much larger stone with many carvings on it. Unfortunately,

in the 1920s, this stone was blown up by locals looking for treasure underneath

the stone. But these glyphs, what do you make of them?

It's certainly interesting that the cross at the center with the pellets is

indicative of graffiti crosses carved by crusading knights.

You see similar ones here in the guardhouse at Dom.

Really? Where are those?

There's some over here.

Here's a good example.

Oh, yeah.

One, two, three, four.

Well, you can see better on the top one.

Oh, yes, yes.

Isn't that a Templar cross?

While numerous stone carvings, believed to have been left by members of the

Knights Templar, have been found on and near Oak Island.

On the face of the stone, you can see the cross of the Knights Templar.

The carvings at Dome Prison, which depict a cross with four pellets, are

nearly identical to those found on the H.O. Stone.

Based on what is referred to as a Jerusalem crucifix, this so-called

Templar cross also features four smaller crosses, which are said to represent the

four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Once the Knights Templar adopted this symbol, they changed the images of the

four smaller crosses to four coins, which were meant to represent their

established banking system.

The symbology we're seeing on the walls and the HO stone, very, very similar. I

mean, they couldn't be more similar. So it's a direct connection, but what does

it mean?

Does that mean that Templars did both? I don't know. I mean, it's a clue.

It surely opens the door to possibilities.

I just think that there's more here than I thought.

Yeah. I am surprised.

I really am. You've got the tree of life. You've got the...

the pellets on the crosses that look similar, very similar, in my opinion, to

the HO stone.

I mean, that's what we came for, really.

We tried to connect with some clarity, some definition, the possibility that

Templars had come to the New World, maybe to Oak Island. I mean, there's a

lot of connective tissue here. I think France was important.

I think we had to follow up, I think, the connections with Zena's map.

needed to be followed up, and we now have these connections. So we need to do

more research. That's really what I walk away with. We're not done.

We've got our homework.

And to that end, Jerry, thank you very much for all your help.

Thank you very much, Ray. All the best of luck with your search, guys.

Thank you. Bye, fellas.

It is the start of another exciting day on Oak Island, as Rick Lagina, along

with Marty's son Alex, have just returned from their incredible trip to

France. Gentlemen, our traveling investigators are back from the old

country, and we're eager to hear what you found.

Well, as you know that we had hired a researcher, Nicola Lewis.

She brought us up to speed about her research.

The focus of it really was the pellets around the cross.

On the HO stone, you get the picture of the cross with the four pellets.

Yeah, we'll get there.

Up there on the cross, you can see the four pellets in the four quadrants of

the cross.

And here we have it, representation on the HO stone.

You have the four pellets and the cross.

That is virtually identical to the symbol on the HO stone. Virtually

identical. I find it amazing.

They're identical.

They're not close. They're identical.

Right. I find that interesting. I don't know what the connection is to Oak

Island and why these things always can have some sort of tenuous connection to

Oak Island is really one of the greatest mysteries we have here.

As we were leaving, Nicholas suggested that we go to Dome and meet up with a

fellow who's an expert, if you will, on Dome. And this fellow, Jerry Glover, has

done 10 years' worth of research on the symbology within these towers.

So here's a look at these carvings that we saw.

That looks like a Templar cross.

So does that.

So here's where we're at. I mean, we're in this room that was used to imprison

Templars, and they're making these carvings to do with their belief system.

They don't think they're going to get out. And so we thought, this is a...

good place to look for any connections to oak island if there are any sure

right and what we found really interesting according to jerry this

carving down here is meant to represent the tree of life

it's not the tree of life that we're using here though or is it we

have an understanding of the modern representations and and this could be

very early depiction i do know this the templars were influenced by

many cultures in the Middle East.

And thus, that may be how they came to be connected to the Tree of Life.

What does this mean in our search?

We now garnered some truths, if you will, from the walls at Dome that the

Templars did believe in the Tree of Life and that it was important enough to

carve into stone to pass on to future generations.

And I believe...

that Nolan's cross has something to do with the swamp and the tree of life.

So all this that you went and found leads us back into the swamp.

Favorite place, Marty. No, not just the swamp.

I go back to find one thing that is irrefutable evidence, be it Templars or

not, it's find the one thing.

There's only one way to do it. Get back out there and get after it.

Okay, done.

You know, my brother...

brings a healthy skepticism to the pursuit.

I mean, I'm eternally optimistic, and I hope to find the one thing that turns

him from skeptic to believer.

I think Rick, he makes a very good case. I mean, you can see the similarities.

He's adding some evidence.

The large rotating oscillator continues grinding the caisson deeper and deeper

into the ground.

Within a few days, it will have reached its first target depth of some 150 feet.

But what lies below is still a burning mystery, fueled by imagination, along

with bits of paper and ragged chunks of bone.

Will the Laginas and their partners find a lost pirate treasure, precious

religious artifacts?

Or will they discover something more?

Perhaps a history more profound than any yet recorded.

A history not only of Oak Island, but of all mankind.

Next time on The Curse of Oak Island.

Well, 170, we're definitely sitting on something.

The oscillator's on a flat, hard surface.

Could this be the vault? I found the ship's log.

it has been agreed that a deep pit be dug and treasures securely buried the

pit to have a secret entrance by a tunnel from the shore there's a trail

now to follow it fits in every aspect oh i've seen that shape before in the

templar prison in france