OAK ISLAND TREASURE

If I told you that there was a buried treasure on an island just off the coast of Nova Scotia, you might believe me. After all this area of North America was a favourite stomping ground for pirates in the 18th century.

If I told you that the treasure was buried in a deep pit, you might respond, "Of course, that was it to make sure no one but the pirates found it".

But what if I told you that the treasure pit was, to date, almost 200 feet deep, protected by an elaborate set of booby traps (underground channels to an ocean beach over 500 feet away), has been the subject of countless excavations since 1795, costing millions of dollars, and the death place of six treasure hunters, and they still haven’t found the treasure… If you answer: "That’s the treasure pit at Oak Island", you are correct!

The story of Oak Island, Nova Scotia,is said to be one the most frustrating and intriguing mysteries of all time.

The story of the Oak Island treasure pit is fascinating and complex. It is a story of mystery, greed, controversy and very little humour. The Oak Island treasure has been sought by many individuals and corporations for over 200 years. It has attracted all strata of explorer from: the three teenagers who first discovered the site; to Franklin D. Roosevelt, a former US President, whose company Old Gold Salvage group searched in 1909; to the swash-buckling actor Errol Flynn who wanted to search Oak Island in 1940, but was discouraged when he found the search rights belonged to a company owned by fellow actor John Wayne.

The story of the Oak Island Treasure Pit has been written about in numerous books. To date the treasure has not been uncovered, but tantalizing glimpses of what are purported to be part of the treasure have been reported. The following are a sample of some of the theories on who buried the treasure on Oak Island:

• the most popular theory is that of the early 18th century pirate Captain Kidd, who frequently visited the region of Oak Island for rest and relaxation and to repair his ships. He seemed to have a habit of burying part of the treasure he plundered far and wide.
• the most bizarre theory is that the treasure is the original works of William Shakespeare/ Sir Francis Bacon buried on the site in the late 16th century. This theory is based on the evidence of a piece of parchment paper brought up from the pit by one of the treasure hunters.
• equally strange is the theory of the crown jewels of France which went missing in 1791 and were said to have been smuggled to Louisburg (north of Oak Island in Cape Breton). Since Louisburg was frequently attacked by the British when the French owned it, the jewels were considered unsafe and were transported to Oak Island.

The theories go on but no one knows for sure the origin of the Treasure Pit.

Excavation of the Pit has never been successful because of the booby traps which were set to protect it. In the mid-1860s, while excavating at the 90 feet level, the treasure hunters encountered soggy ground. This was not too surprising because the Pit was only 500 feet from the coast line and high tide of the ocean was about at the 32 foot level. At 93 feet the wetness was more pronounced. At 98 feet they struck an extra hard surface. They took the rest of day off and the next morning found that the shaft of the Pit was filled with sea water to the 32 foot level. We now know that the miners had inadvertently opened a series of channels to the beach which had been installed as a booby trap to protect the treasure.

Many attempts have been made over the years to discover how the booby trap works. Coffer dams have been built on the nearby beach, thought to be the source of the water flow… but to no avail.

In the over 200 years that adventurers have searched for the Treasure Pit of Oak Island, they have encountered oak log platforms every ten feet or so to the thirty foot level. From there, a drill probe used in 1849, encountered multiple layers of charcoal, putty and coconut fibre. At the 98 feet level, a spruce platform guarding two oak chests containing loose metal pieces (pieces of eight?) was discovered.

But the discoveries do not stop there. Continued drilling, in 1897, found that there were, below the 98 foot oak chests, layers of wood and iron, a 30 foot layer of blue clay (a hand-worked watertight mixture of clay, sand and water) , a seven foot deep cement vault at 153 feet and an iron barrier at 171 feet.

Early on in the hunt for the Treasure, an inscribed stone (which has been lost over time) was found face-down in the Pit. There have been various interpretations made of the inscription. Below is a drawing of the inscription:

The most commonly accepted translation is as follows:

Today, Oak Island is owned by two individuals who still search of the treasure.

Who knows, maybe some day we will know the true story of the mystery of the Treasure Pit of Oak Island.

ATLANTIS - The Lost Empire

Atlantis is one of the world's greatest mysteries. To many, its very name evokes a mystical sense of familiarity and lost memories. It is said to be the lost Atlantic continent, the first home of civilisation, an earthly paradise, struck down by a natural catastrophe at the height of its power, and now lying deep under the ocean, with only the tops of its mountains protruding from the ocean floor.

To others, Atlantis is merely a legend, invented by Plato, the Greek philosopher, as a backdrop for two of his dialogues: Timaeus and Critias.

Another belief is that Atlantis was a true precursor of the early civilisations and not located in the Atlantic at all, but instead occupying some other location, like the Greek islands of Crete or Santorini, as opposed to the Azores, Madeira, or the Canary Islands.

The name Atlantis derives from atlas, the giant Greek God who is said to have supported the sky. In Greek, Atlantis means "Daughter of Atlas".

PILLARS OF HERCULES

One popular assertion from Plato is that Atlantis was ‘beyond the Pillars of Hercules’. These are almost unanimously thought to be the outcrops either side of the Strait of Gibraltar.
The mythology of the Straits of Glbraltar is neat and explanatory. Geographically speaking, they represent a narrow stretch of water separating the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. And mystically, they separate the known world from the unknown.
To the north and south of the Straits are two large promontories - the Rock of Gibraltar in Europe and the Abyla on the African coast. These are the pillars separating the narrow strait. But according to legend the two promontories were much closer. Indeed, they were a closed gate. Until, that is, the mighty Hercules stood by the rocks and pushed them apart, thus allowing the waters to flood in.

ATLANTIS AND COLONISATION

The ancient Greeks were great colonisers, founding many Mediterranean cities which exist to this day. And bearing this adventurousness in mind, we can see the myth of Hercules separating the straits as a desire of the ancient Greeks to learn more, shedding light on what is dark; a noble pursuit that was later to find additional expression in their great philosophers, of which Plato was one of the greatest exponents. In this sense, Atlantis can, therefore, be seen in a place where our knowledge is ‘dark’, rather than physically beyond.
And it is, perhaps, in the same magnificent spirit that Atlantis rose to popular consciousness in the 19th century, during a similar time of great expansion and colonisation. This was the time of the great European empire building, and the time when America first expressed its wish to be a superpower, going on to eclipse Europe.
We can here see why some people would be eager to realise the existence of a great lost civilisation, divorced from all the other races on Earth. And to this we must also add the publication, in 1859, of Charles Darwins ‘Origin of Species’. With God in decline, a new theory of human origins was abroad - that we had evolved through natural selection, and western society was its higherst expression.
Such an idea infused Victorian society in the 19th century. With the Industrial Revolution well advanced and the European empires coming very much into being, the Victorians saw themselves as the apex of the evolutionary story. And with such sentiments, it is not difficult to see the inspiration for the literal profusion of ideas concerning Atlantis. The American and the western European was retracing the greatness that existed in the deep, dark past?

IGNATIUS DONNELLY

Due to this popular awareness, when Ignatius Donnelly published his ‘Atlantis: The Antediluvian World’ in 1882, it created immense interest. Donnelly, an American Congressman, created many of the controversies and views concerning Atlantis that survive to this day. Principle among these was his idea that at one time Atlantis existed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, until its destruction in a cataclysm.
Positing an earthquake as the most likely reason for its destruction, to Donnelly, Atlantis had acted as a form of bridge between cultures either side of the Atlantic, the island itself being the primary source of those cultures.
Donnelly found evidence for this idea wherever he looked. For instance, throughout the Atlantic there are small islands which are, infact, the tips of undersea mountains. To Donnelly these are all that is left of the mountains that used to be above sea level, forming part of the Atlantis homeland.
Similarly, evidence of his idea of Atlantis as the primary source of culture could be seen throughout the ancient world, in the similarities of cultures, architecture, writing skills and other achievements from the Incas to the ancient Egyptians. He also posited the idea that the sudden appearance of these cultures could only be explained by the sudden disappearance of their mother culture.

PSEUDO-SCHOLARS

Ignatius Donnelly was one of the first modern pseudo-scholars. Mocked and derided by most serious researchers, they are often believeable and always popular. In Donnelly’s case, his persuasive writing went on to prompt British Prime Minister Gladstone to attempt to get Parliament to fund a ship to trace the sunken coastline of Atlantis.
Today, we know that much of Donnelly’s evidence was untrue. But this should not be used as an excuse to ignore pseudoscholarship in its entirely.
For instance, the list of great pseudo-scholars of the past include Charles Darwin (a lifelong amateur), Gregor Mendel (the discoverer of genetics and a monk), and the great Sir Isaac Newton himself; his real search was not so much scientific, but to find the ‘great spirit of the universe’.
Of course, not all pseudoscholars are as successful as this trio. Indeed, many of them do write absolute hogwash. You may even decide that I fit this last category. But at worst, such writers at least fuel the experts to define more completely, and at best, they can begin entirely new sciences.

LEWIS SPENCE

Donnelly began an Atlantian tradition of speculation, deep theory and occasional lunacy, which continues to this day.
One principal writer in this vein was Scottish newspaper editor and editor of ‘The Atlantis Quarterly’, Lewis Spence. After writing studies of the mythologies of Egypt, Babylon and the early Americas, in the 1920s he turned his attention to Atlantis, which he decided had covered most of the Atlantic Ocean in the Miocene period, ending ten million years ago. At this point it disintegrated into smaller islands and, from 25,000 to 10,000 years ago, disappeared completely.
Studying the Atlantic coast of Europe, Spence decided that the early humans such as Cro-Magnon Man had actually migrated from the western side of Atlantis, near the Americas. Only in this way can we see Cro-Magnon Man as the real invader he was, going on to wipe out Europe’s indigenous Neanderthal Man.
Taking his evidence from a wide variety of sources, including archeology, anthropology, geology and mythology, much of this is totally discredited, but this did not stop the speculation, sometimes coming from scientists themselves.

THE AZORES, STUPID

One such scientist was Austrian physicist Otto Muck. Opting for the Azores as the location of the destroyed Atlantis, he argued that in 8500BC the sunken continent was lost when a large asteroid struck the Charleston coast of North America.
Some most unusual evidence of something strange about the Azores did, infact, surface in 1898, when a telegraph company used grappling equipment to mend a broken Transatlantic cable 500 miles north of the Azores.
French geologist Pierce Termier was sent samples from rocks brought up from the sea bed. Identifying them as basaltic lava, they did however show evidence of volcanic activity ABOVE sea level in the recent geological past.
No real evidence has been found to link an asteroid collision to the destruction of a large Atlantic island, but this has not stopped some amazing disaster scenarios to irritate scientists.

DISASTER SCENARIOS

Typical was Austrian engineer Hans Hoerbiger. Fascinated, by astronomy and mythology, he put mythologies of a malevolent Moon down to the fact that Earth had been struck by the Moon in the past.
However, this was not our present Moon. This, Hoerbiger, was convinced, was just a ball of ice. But in the past, Earth had had a second Moon, a captured comet, which caused a great flood and other disasters when it exploded.
Many Atlantis theorists have associated this much discredited disaster scenario with the destruction of Atlantis. And the same can be said for the ideas of psychoanalyst, Emmanuel Velikovsky.
Fascinated by Sigmund Freud’s idea that Moses was also the Egyptian pharaoh Akhnaton (a pharaoh who briefly introduced into Egypt the idea of a single God), Velikovsky became intrigued by early mythologies.
In particular, the disasters such as the Flood arrested his attention. In 1680 a comet had approached Earth, and the scientist W Whiston had put forward the idea that on a previous encounter this comet had caused the Biblical Flood.
Velikovsky tended to agree with this idea, and went on to formulate a cosmology in which a comet had several times approached Earth, causing all Biblical disasters, and accounting for the destruction of Atlantis, before finally settling down to become the planet Venus.

IN CONCLUSION

Of course, none of these ideas can now be backed up by real science. For instance, the Moon is not made of ice, Venus is a definite planet. But in the world of Atlantian speculation, anything goes.
But my central point here would be, and why not? For instance, academia must always be challenged, otherwise all we will ever have for knowledge is consensus, and consensus can cripple knowledge.
Similarly, archaeology has made many advances in their techniques due to their need to disprove certain pseudoscholars. So if for no other reason than this, pseudoscholarship, and Atlantology in particular, has a valid role.
But most importantly, Atlantis makes us expand our minds - gives us the idea that knowledge is not complete. It keeps alive the thirst to inquire - an inquiry that led to the ideas and ideals of the modern world in the first place.
Whether theory or fantasy, Atlantis remains one of the central symbols of the thinking mind.

I do hope you have enjoyed reading this article, as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Perhaps you have your own theories on the whereabouts of Atlantis that you may like to share and discuss.

I look forward to hearing from you.

KNIGHTS OF TEMPLAR

When the Knights Templar or the Order of the Temple were founded in 1118-1119 in Jerusalem, it was a 'poor order' whose primary function was the protection of pilgrims along the main roads between the coast at Jaffa and the inland city of Jerusalem. But an important transformation took place when this nascent Order came under the patronage of St Bernard of Clairvaux, nephew of André de Montbard, one of the founding group of the Templars. Until his conversion at the age of twenty, St Bernard himself had been destined for a knightly career, and when he came to patronize the Knights Templar that Order was imbued with the ideals and convictions of the knightly class of Burgundy. ..

..and YES.. the Templars did possess the Holy Grail!!

It has been generally accepted that, for the first nine years of their existence, the Templars consisted of nine members.

Although it has been widely speculated that the Templars wished to keep it this way to cover their secret mission of digging for buried treasure on the Temple Mount, the simple fact remains that the lifestyle adopted by the Order was not to everyone's taste. As such, the Templars had difficulty in recruiting members to their cause in the early years.

Later owing to the Cistercian abbot, Bernard of Clairvaux's letter that swept through the entire Chritendom, nobles were drawn to the order.Those who were unable to join often gifted the Templars with land and other valuables.

While it is true that the Templars were not permitted, by their rule, to own much of anything personally, there was no such restriction on the Order as a whole.

Over the years the Templars rose from their humble beginnings to become the wealthiest of the Crusading Orders - eventually garnering the favour of the Church and the collective European monarchs.

However, after two centuries of defending the Christian faith, the Order met its demise when Philip IV - motivated by greed - sought to destroy the Templars.

On March 18th, 1314 the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake.Legends hold that De Molay cursed King Philip and Pope Clement to join him in death within a year - and so they did!

Grand Masters

Within the Templar hierarchy, the Grand Master was absolute ruler of the Order and answerable only to the pope. Although his position was a powerful one, he was still obliged to live by the same Rule of Order that those under him swore to obey. However, the Rule did grant him a fairly extensive entourage:

• 4 horses
• 1 Chaplain Brother
• 1 clerk with 3 horses
• 1 Sergeant Brother with 2 horses
• 1 gentleman valet with 1 horse
• 1 farrier
• 1 Saracen scribe
• 1 turcopole
• 1 cook
• 2 foot soldiers
• 1 turcoman
• 2 knight brothers as companions

They were -

Hugues de Payens
Robert de Craon
Everard des Barres
Bernard de Tremeley
Andrew de Montbard

Bertrand de Blancfort
Philip de Milly (Nablus)
Odo de St Amand
Arnold de Torroja
Gerard de Ridefort

Robert de Sablé
Gilbert Erail
Philip de Plessis
William de Chartres
Peter de Montaigu
Armand de Périgord
Richard de Bures

William de Sonnac
Reginald de Vichiers
Thomas Bérard
William de Beaujeu
Theobald Gaudin

Jacques de Molay

Legends and relics

  The Knights Templar have become associated with legends concerning secrets and mysteries handed down to the select from ancient times. Rumors circulated even during the time of the Templars themselves. Freemasonic writers added their own speculations in the 19th century, and further fictional embellishments have been added in modern movies such as National Treasure and Kingdom of Heaven, best-selling novels such as Ivanhoe and The Da Vinci Code, and video games such as Assassin's Creed, Hellgate: London and Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars.
Many of the Templar legends are connected with the Order's early occupation of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and speculation about what relics the Templars may have found there, such as the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant.That the Templars were in possession of some relics is certain. Many churches still display relics such as the bones of a saint, a scrap of cloth once worn by a holy man, or the skull of a martyr: the Templars did the same. They were documented as having a piece of the True Cross, which the Bishop of Acre carried into battle at the disastrous Horns of Hattin. When the battle was lost, Saladin captured the relic, which was then ransomed back to the Crusaders when the Muslims surrendered the city of Acre in 1191 They also possessed the head of Saint Euphemia of Chalcedon.The subject of relics also came up during the Inquisition of the Templars, as several trial documents refer to the worship of an idol of some type, referred to in some cases as a cat, a bearded head, or in some cases as Baphomet, according to one theory a French misspelling of the name Mahomet (Muhammad).

The supposed idol worship was included in the charges brought against the Templars leading to their arrest in the early fourteenth century.This accusation of idol worship levied against the Templars has also led to the modern belief by some that the Templars practiced witchcraft.

There was particular interest during the Crusader era in the Holy Grail myth, which was quickly associated with the Templars, even in the 12th century. The first Grail romance, the fantasy story Le Conte du Graal, was written in 1180 by Chrétien de Troyes, who came from the same area where the Council of Troyes had officially sanctioned the Templars' Order. In Arthurian legend, the hero of the Grail quest, Sir Galahad (a 13th-century literary invention of monks from St. Bernard's Cistercian Order), was depicted bearing a shield with the cross of Saint George, similar to the Templars' insignia. In a chivalric epic of the period, Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach refers to Templars guarding the Grail Kingdom.A legend developed that, since the Templars had their headquarters at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, they must have excavated in search of relics, found the Grail, and then proceeded to keep it in secret and guard it with their lives. However, in the extensive documents of the Templar inquisition there was never a single mention of anything like a Grail relic,let alone its possession by the Templars. In reality, most scholars agree that the story of the Grail was just that, a fiction that began circulating in medieval times.

One legendary artifact that does have some connection with the Templars is the Shroud of Turin. In 1357, the shroud was first publicly displayed by the family of the grandson of Geoffrey de Charney, the Templar who had been burned at the stake with Jacques de Molay in 1314. The artifact's origins are still a matter of controversy. In 1988, a carbon dating analysis concluded that the shroud was made between 1260 and 1390, a span that includes the last half-century of the Templars.Disagreement over the proper dating continues.

Fibonacci Numbers In Nature

The Fibonacci numbers are Nature's numbering system. They appear everywhere in Nature.

The sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers is known as the Fibonacci series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, ...

Fibonacci was known in his time and is still recognized today as the "greatest European mathematician of the middle ages."

He was born in the 1170's and died in the 1240's.He was one of the first people to introduce the Hindu-Arabic number system into Europe.

Fibonacci and Nature

Plants do not know about this sequence - they just grow in the most efficient ways. Many plants show the Fibonacci numbers in the arrangement of the leaves around the stem. Some pine cones and fir cones also show the numbers, as do daisies and sunflowers.

Why do these arrangements occur? In the case of leaf arrangement, or phyllotaxis, some of the cases may be related to maximizing the space for each leaf, or the average amount of light falling on each one. Even a tiny advantage would come to dominate, over many generations. In the case of close-packed leaves in cabbages and succulents the correct arrangement may be crucial for availability of space.


Petals on flowers

On many plants, the number of petals is a Fibonacci number:
buttercups have 5 petals; lilies and iris have 3 petals; some delphiniums have 8; corn marigolds have 13 petals; some asters have 21 whereas daisies can be found with 34, 55 or even 89 petals.

• 3 petals: lily, iris
• 5 petals: buttercup, wild rose, larkspur, columbine (aquilegia)
• 8 petals: delphiniums
• 13 petals: ragwort, corn marigold, cineraria,
• 21 petals: aster, black-eyed susan, chicory
• 34 petals: plantain, pyrethrum
• 55, 89 petals: michaelmas daisies, the asteraceae family

  

  
  

Here is a passion flower (passiflora incarnata) from the back and front:

Back view

the 3 sepals that protected the bud are outermost,
then 5 outer green petals followed by an inner layer of 5 more paler green petals

Front view

the two sets of 5 green petals are outermost, with an array of purple-and-white stamens (how many?);in the centre are 5 greenish stamens (T-shaped) and uppermost in the centre are 3 deep brown carpels and style branches)


Vegetables and Fruit

Here is a picture of an ordinary cauliflower. Note how it is almost a pentagon in outline. Looking carefully, you can see a centre point, where the florets are smallest. Look again, and you will see the florets are organized in spirals around this centre in both directions.

Human Hand

Every human has two hands, each one of these has five fingers, each finger has three parts which are separated by two knuckles. All of these numbers fit into the sequence.

However keep in mind, this could simply be coincidence.

Nazca Lines

The Nazca Lines are located in the Pampa region of Peru.They were made known by Toribio Mejia Xespe in 1939.

Composition of the Lines

The pebbles which cover the surface of the desert contain ferrous oxide. The exposure of centuries has given them a dark patina. When the gravel is removed, they contrast with the color underneath. In this way the lines were drawn as furrows of a lighter color, even though in some cases they became prints. In other cases, the stones defining the lines and drawings form small lateral humps of different sizes. Some drawings, especially the early ones, were made by removing the stones and gravel from their contours and in this way the figures stood out in high relief.

Designs

The concentration and juxtaposition of the lines and drawings leave no doubt that they required intensive long-term labor as is demonstrated by the stylistic continuity of the designs, which clearly correspond to the different stages of cultural changes. There appear to be two kinds of designs: the first are figures of various beings and things and the others form geometric lines. The former consists of figures of animals, plants, objects, such as anthropomorphic figures of colossal proportions made with well-defined lines. Of these figures which have been restored by Maria Reiche and other collaborators about 70 are known. Probably the most extraordinary thing about the lines is that one can only see the picture they form from the air, the people who created them could not have seen how they look in the pictures on this page from ground level.

The most famous

- The Spider, approximately 46m long,
- The Monkey, 55m long,
- The Guanay (guano bird), 280m long,
- The Lizzard 180m,
- The Hummingbird, 50m long,
- The Killer Whale, 65m long or
- The Pelican - the largest of them all - at 285m long.

There are also drawings of flowers and plants, as well as representations of deformed animals and other strange figures. An example of this is thedrawing of a weird being with two enormous hands, one normal and the other with only four fingers. Also represented are drawings of man-made objects such as yarn, looms and "tupus" (ornamental clasps). All these figures have well-defined entrances which could be used as paths or to allow people to line together along the conformations of the drawings.

The anthropomorphic figures are relatively few and are situated on the slopes. The most well-known being The Astronaut at 32m length and E.T., discovered by Eduardo Herran in 1982. Others are The Man with a Hat and The Executioner and they also appear to be the most primitive. These figures are very similar to the small petroglyphs found in the rocky areas of the region.

In terms of the lines, many kilometers long, they crisscross sectors of the pampas in all directions. Many of the lines form geometric figures: angles, triangles, bunches, spirals, rectangles, wavy lines, etc. Other lines form concentric circles converging with or emanating from a promontory. Other prints have formed "roads" like geometric planes and appear to have been occupied by large groups of the population.

Theories

There are several theories regarding the Nasca lines.The archaeological explanation as to who made them and how is widely accepted; namely that the Nazca people made the lines using simple tools and surveying equipment. Some believe they were used for rituals, propably related to astronomy. However, there is less existing evidence concerning why the figures were built, so the Nazca people's motivation remains the lines' most persistent mystery. Many scholars believe that their motivation was religious, making images that only gods in the sky could see clearly.

Others believe they were used to confirm the "ayllus" or clans who made up the population and to determine through ritual their economic functions held up by reciprocity and redistribution.

Some say they were created for ET creator Gods.

Perhaps the most controversial theory was put forward by Erich von Däniken in his book Chariots of the Gods, who proposed that the lines were in fact landing strips for alien spacecraft. His argument is similar to Woodman's, claiming that the designs are so large and complex that they could only have been constructed using flying machines.