Gretchen Cornwall

The discovery that the French Box Drains on Oak Island form an Equilateral Triangle is very compelling to those interested in the Knights Templar or the Freemasons –

                        All following images, unless otherwise stated are copyright of the                                History Channel/Prometheus –

During Season 6 Episode 10 – Doug Crowell, Paul Troutman and Alex Lagina visit Lordly Museum’s archive for information hoping to lead to historical clues and came up with exciting new information on the French Box Drains.

In an article from the Yarmouth Herald, February 19, 1863, revealed measurements of the French Drains from a prior dig by the Turo company.  This is new intel as it had not been known that the drains had been excavated or measured until now!

According to the article, each of the five fingers of the drains measured 66 feet in length and the base of the fingers, below the watermark, was also 66 feet across, encompassing all 5 drains.  The measurement forms an equilateral triangle.

If I remember correctly there is at least one carving of a triangle found on the island.  Perhaps this was done in sympathy with the French Box Drains?  The article also states that the fingers of the drains are formed with flat stones in the form of a triangle, supported inside by smaller rocks to help keep their structure as well as stabilizers on top.

The measurements of the drains fit within the wooden ‘U-Shaped’ structure which has been successfully excavated in its entirety this last summer by the O.I. Team.  A huge achievement by Oak Island!

The description in the article from 1863, read aloud by Doug Crowell during the episode, that a ‘foreign grass, like the inside of a coconut husk…’ was used to waterproof the drains is amazing.  Fibers have been found on the island, some having been dated to 1200 AD.  This potentially dates the drains to 1200 AD during the Templar historic period.  I am holding my breath to hear the date of the carbon dating for the fibers found this last summer, which I am sure the O.I. team are conducting.

What is not known is if the ‘U-Shaped’ wooden structure was built as a cofferdam to rediscover the original Money Pit or those who built the wooden U-Shape structure also built the Money Pit?  For myself, the defining issue always goes back to the coconut fibers dating to 1200 AD –

The coconut fibers acting as a filter to prevent debris from entering into the five-fingered drain trap were brought to the island from a minimum of 1500 miles to the south in Bermuda.  Of course, they may have come from further afield as the Templars had a top-notch navy, the coconut fibers may be from the Middle East.

Between the carving of a stone triangle found on the island, the shape of the measurement of the French Box Drains forming a triangle and the actual formation of the drains themselves forming a triangle… lead me to think of the historical use of the shape.

I thought it important to examine the Equilateral Triangle both in Medieval Christianity and also Freemasonry, in brief, as both are extensive topics.  Though it would be my hope that Oak Island will reveal itself as a Templar vault, or at the very least visited by them, treasures buried in later centuries by Freemasons or Rosicrucians are a possibility as well.  My own research has born out the influence of Templarism in Freemasonry and the Rose Croix as outlined in my book.

Templars would have been familiar with the Equilateral Triangle for its geometry usage in building but also in surveying and navigation.  It also had sacred relevance in the Christian world as Catholicism was the official religion in Europe for many centuries, though with regional variations, broadly speaking.  As an aside, there are approximately 35,000 Christian sects in the world which I find boggling…  But which version is ‘right’?  No wonder religious wars ravaged Europe for centuries and is the main reason for the Separation of Church and State as enshrined in the Constitution of America and many other countries…

The Tetragrammaton has its deep roots in ancient Judea as the unspoken four letters of the sacred name of God or YHWH/Jehova which was adopted as part of the Christian religion centuries later.

It is the perfect trinity symbol with multiple ascribed meanings depending on the viewer’s belief system.

The triangle has been used as a Holy Symbol, alchemy symbol and in cryptic codes.  For a medieval stonemason, it is one of the easiest to carve along with the simple cross, three strikes or two respectively.

The All Seeing Eye or Eye of Providence is a familiar Freemasonic emblem laden with meaning and clearly a follow on from the Tetragrammaton visible in 1000’s of churches and cathedrals across Europe going back centuries.

The added layer of the Egyptian pyramid gives a different dimension as half of all Freemasons I’ve ever spoken to believe their craft dates back to this time.  Certainly the skill of building a pyramid has never been matched with all our technology and understanding of maths today.

Many physical experiments have been launched to replicate the engineering behind the pyramid which has never been successful to the level of the ancient Egyptians.  It is normal to aspire to these dizzying heights of architecture.  Stone is also the only object that stands the test of time unless willfully destroyed by dynamite and ignorance as we saw in the ancient city of Palmyra at the hands of Daesh.  This is right up there with book burning as far as I’m concerned…  Both are great evils…

 

Books have been written about this symbol and what it may represent, both dull and controversial.  At its heart, it is a reminder that all actions are held accountable.  The floating triangle above the pyramid highlights the Tetragrammaton as above our physical plane of existence but that our own work to make the world a better place is never completed as it is in essence, a divine act.

Freemasonry was the first psychological program outside of the auspices of the church to create a system of improving a human being, again, outside of politics or religion in order to prevent needless warfare.  All self-help books today are a follow on of self-improvement extracted from religion first and its follow on, Freemasonry.

The use of the number ‘5’ as in the reported five drains looking very much like a hand or fingers (thanks to Jack Begley) also finds its roots in the divine such as The Hand of God or the Five Wounds of Christ.  It is also the number of man, best described visually as the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci.

Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci

I covered the Hand of God in my blog on the lead cross found at Smith Cove

Why a measurement of 66 Feet in relation to the length of each channel or finger in the five drains?  66 x 5 = 330 total feet or to break this down are we looking at a symbol for the lifespan of Christ being 33 years?  Or the 33rd degree in the Scottish Rite?  The ultimate accolade bestowed through merit.  Just to muddy the waters a bit more, there are 33 vertebrae in the human spine.  At each level or vertebrae of the spine, traveling up, one attains enlightenment.  This subject is covered in depth in my book of course!  😉

While reading about the dates in use of various measurement systems on Wiki, which is always a good place just to start an investigation, I came across the following photo and address:

Note the address above, Seven Sisters, or the star constellation the Pleiades as described in my prior blog on Dr. Travis Taylor discovery of Taurus as an overlay on Oak Island.

The treasure hunt of the Money Pit has its legendary start and discovery in 1795 when the five finger drains would have been buried long before.

I researched the usage of the ‘foot’ measurement and found that it had its roots in ancient Rome and it continued to be adapted by consecutive European cultures.  Apparently ancient cultures such as Egypt, Mesopotamia preferred the cubit that we are familiar with in biblical terms.  The usage of 12 inches to a foot varied over the centuries.  Charlemagne, ruler of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor of the 9th century tried to standardize the ‘foot’ with varying levels of dismal success.

The measurements in use for a foot varied from 296.1mm,  320mm and 340mm.  Or respectively = 11.65748 inches, 12.598425 inches and 13.385827 inches in the Frankish kingdom up to the 10th century.

Since the Templars originated in the Champagne region of France I chose to focus on the use of the foot in France during the time of the Templars.  What has surprised me is how close the foot measurement stayed within a short span as it is based on a human male foot.  Usually the king’s foot or the ‘Pied du Roi’ or Paris Foot.

I was very concerned the measurements would throw the argument for the Templars into the 16th or later centuries.  I could not find a reason to bypass the Templar era as the originators of the Five Fingered Box Drains, taking into consideration the measurements listed in the Yarmouth article.  Actually measuring what remains of the drains may be problematic as they could have shifted or been disturbed over time, or indeed during the prior undocumented excavation.

The Cubit is also part of medieval measure and also heraldry as a cubit is roughly the length of a man’s arm from the elbow to the middle finger.  A length that Charlemagne tried to establish.  Is it possible that the Cubit was used to measure and build the drains by the original builders instead of the foot – if so what does this mean?

A cubit is 18″ in length which is a significant difference to the foot.  Rather than 66 feet per finger drain, we’re looking at 44 cubits per drain x 5 = 220 cubits total.

Like the history of the foot, the cubit varies in length.  At this stage, I do not think the drains were built using the cubit as I’ve not found any correlation that would match symbolically.  French medieval church building focused on using variations of the foot vs the cubit in their architecture.  The builders of the Money Pit and the drains would have been practiced engineers in France and would have used their knowledge base and experience to create the drains and flood tunnel that would doom anyone foolish enough to try and excavate the vault.

It will be interesting to see how the dig unfolds and what might remain of the drains and if they will lead the way to the long sought after vault.

The inhospitable conditions of building such a structure can only be guessed at by watching the Oak Island team try to excavate the area around the original and now lost, Money Pit.  Without the aid of modern equipment or safety assurances, the builders of the site have my utmost respect.  With said conditions being so difficult, asking for exact measurements of 12″ to a foot vs the other possibilities listed above become inconsequential to the overall issue of just how exact the measurements are of the 66 feet per finger of the drains.

As an extra thought, the design is quite thoughtful.  Chalets are built with a steep roof line to handle the heavy weight of snow.  The builders of the drains were familiar with weight on rooflines and that a steep pitch would protect the integrity of the structure over time.