Oak Island, Nova Scotia — In a stunning week of discoveries, the Lagina brothers and their team have uncovered a series of artifacts and a long-sought underground tunnel that could finally provide answers to the 228-year-old mystery of the Money Pit.
At the Oak Island Interpretive Center, Rick Lagina, his nephew Alex, and archaeologist Laird Niven were joined by metal-detecting expert Gary Drayton and archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan to examine two extraordinary finds recently unearthed on Lot 5: a coin believed to date to the reign of King George III and a bead possibly of Phoenician origin.
Culligan’s CT scan of the coin revealed the inscription Georgius III Rex, dating it to the late 18th century — decades before the Money Pit was discovered in 1795. “It’s a fascinating piece of evidence,” Rick Lagina remarked. “Who left it here, and why?”
Adding to the intrigue, Gary Drayton uncovered fragments of fine Chinese porcelain along the shoreline foundation. “That’s high-end stuff,” Drayton said, suggesting it may have arrived on Portuguese trade ships during the Age of Exploration. Multiple shards, some painted with brilliant blue glaze, point to centuries of activity along Oak Island’s mysterious stone road.
The discoveries continued when the team unearthed the heel of a hobnailed boot, likely dating to the 18th or early 19th century. Rick Lagina reflected, “The collection of pottery and artifacts tells a story. Now we need to understand how it connects to the stone road and the mystery of this place.”
Lagina Brothers Break Through at Garden Shaft
Meanwhile, in the Money Pit area, Rick and Marty Lagina suited up alongside Dumas Contracting crews to extend the Garden Shaft beyond 95 feet. After days of grueling labor with pneumatic jackhammers, the team broke through dense clay and struck a long-anticipated target: a seven-foot-high tunnel, reinforced with massive timber beams.
“When I hit that timber and heard the hollow sound beneath, I thought, ‘Maybe I’m standing on the tunnel we’ve searched for all these years,’” Rick recalled.
Surveyor Steve Guptill confirmed the placement of control points, while Gary Drayton’s detector located shaped metal fragments, possibly related to the tunnel’s original construction. Most remarkable, several beams bore unmistakable adze cuts — marks left by hand tools used prior to the 18th century.
“This is no longer interpretation,” Rick declared. “It’s real. We’re standing on history.”
Earlier wood samples from the same tunnel were carbon-dated to the 1600s, raising the possibility that the structure predates the discovery of the Money Pit by more than a century.
What’s Next for Oak Island?
Dumas crews will next drill horizontally from the Garden Shaft into the newly exposed tunnel to probe for signs of the “Baby Blob,” an anomaly where trace amounts of gold and silver have been detected. The team hopes to determine whether the tunnel leads to the original depositor’s vault — and possibly the long-fabled treasure.
“This could be it,” Marty Lagina said. “After fifteen years, we might be only feet away from solving the world’s greatest treasure mystery.”
As Oak Island continues to yield artifacts of global significance — from Chinese porcelain to British coinage to possible Templar-era construction — the question remains: Who was here, and what did they leave behind?
📰 Editor’s Note: With each dig, Oak Island reveals a new layer of history that spans continents and centuries. Whether treasure or simply truth lies beneath, the story unfolding is as priceless as any gold.
