Plus we are to believe that the Templars, who had never been to the island or the NS mainland, planned on using this coir to filter seawater ahead of time, while in Europe, to hide a treasure, but once there, OI, dumped it out and then buried their treasure somewhere else?
So coir dating to 1100 AD can survive being buried (allegedly) in the sand of Oak Island, subject to centuries of tides, sand, freezing and thawing, yet, according to you, could only last one trip across the Med or Atlantic?
I'm With Singestack on this one. Even if the coir does date to 1100 or 1400 (or whatever), it doesn't mean that it was deposited in 1100 or 1400 (or whenever), especially when considering the sketchy provenance that you describe above ("the sample was physically obtained by David Tobias from Smith's Cove behind an old board wall (first section North side) and spent the last 20 years or so in the island museum as sample 'S-2'.").
Loki...
You kind of contradict yourself when you say " IMHO, it would last one trip across the Med. or Atlantic in a wet cargo hold"
If that were true, then the one trip from the Med would have made it unsuitable to make another across the Atlantic for any kind of use...Plus we are to believe that the Templars, who had never been to the island or the NS mainland, planned on using this coir to filter seawater ahead of time, while in Europe, to hide a treasure, but once there, OI, dumped it out and then buried their treasure somewhere else? That's less likely than the ships perished in a storm on the way over and the coir made itself to the island on it's own with storm tides, IMHO. IF they would have had a hold full to begin with to take along, which would be a poor use of a ship and men that could be used to transport items you may actually need when escaping to an unknown land.
The "behind an old board wall" is a bit troubling also...was this wall also from the 1100ce time period too, exposed to weather with out rotting to dirt?
And the provenance was not that sketchy, at least Woods Hole didn't seem to think so, other wise they would have made a point of it.
Cheers, loki
I will also stick with my original argument to you, that you dismiss, as 'couldn't happen'..but yet expect your unverified Templar theory as 'did happen'...
For those that don't know what that argument is...i'll restate it here
Like everything else, coir was a commodity at port towns, just as well as timber works, blacksmiths, foodstores etc.. All of these items purchased from elsewhere to be sold to merchant shipping clients...
So if you had a warehouse full of coir, that was purchased at great expense by you from afar...you would also buy up any that was no longer used that came into your port that you could then resell at a standard price while paying a fraction of the normal price for it. Some of this would be in the form of packing material and some in the form of line and rope that no longer had integrity to continue use on a ship...thousands of feet of this on one ship that would be changed out during a refitting. But could be simply chopped up to reuse as packing to sell. All of this coir would be dry and suitable for the task and could be of any age, even a few hundred years old when you get it...What you would NOT do is throw it away as it was simply to expensive a commodity to ship in that was used by almost every ship that brought goods to your location, and then purchased more goods that were themselves packed in coir by the merchant selling them.
Nothing went to waste in these port towns when the expense to replace anything that could not be grown or made there was high...and neither would coir be.
My own theory is this coir on OI was a byproduct of the fishing station there in 1753 that had been used in shipping fish since at least 1580 up and down the coast to Cuba and beyond, and before that to ship goods to Cuba from other ports of the world, not suitable for that use anymore it was then used to filter in Smith's Cove for the salt works, they also needed.
Or it could have been a shipload of Templars that had no idea where they were going exactly or what was there an so took a bunch of coir with them instead of using that hold space for items like freshwater, food, tools, equipment and trade goods..and once there, decided to dump it.
Fro what I understand, they did make a point of it: "It should be noted (and this was stated categorically by the chief scientist involved in the project) that the researchers were led to the spot and handed material retrieved from under the sand (Aubrey, 2002). No archaeological dig was conducted and the researchers did not have the time to search for additional samples. Thus it is possible that quantities of fibre were planted by prior treasure hunters in order to mislead potential investors, or (as one of the scientists suggested) the material might have been deposited on the eastern coast of the island by storm action sometime in the distant past..."
Appendix --Woods Hole Explores Oak Island
Fro what I understand, they did make a point of it: "It should be noted (and this was stated categorically by the chief scientist involved in the project) that the researchers were led to the spot and handed material retrieved from under the sand (Aubrey, 2002). No archaeological dig was conducted and the researchers did not have the time to search for additional samples. Thus it is possible that quantities of fibre were planted by prior treasure hunters in order to mislead potential investors, or (as one of the scientists suggested) the material might have been deposited on the eastern coast of the island by storm action sometime in the distant past..."
Appendix --Woods Hole Explores Oak Island
I will also stick with my original argument to you, that you dismiss, as 'couldn't happen'..but yet expect your unverified Templar theory as 'did happen'...
For those that don't know what that argument is...i'll restate it here
Like everything else, coir was a commodity at port towns, just as well as timber works, blacksmiths, foodstores etc.. All of these items purchased from elsewhere to be sold to merchant shipping clients...
So if you had a warehouse full of coir, that was purchased at great expense by you from afar...you would also buy up any that was no longer used that came into your port that you could then resell at a standard price while paying a fraction of the normal price for it. Some of this would be in the form of packing material and some in the form of line and rope that no longer had integrity to continue use on a ship...thousands of feet of this on one ship that would be changed out during a refitting. But could be simply chopped up to reuse as packing to sell. All of this coir would be dry and suitable for the task and could be of any age, even a few hundred years old when you get it...What you would NOT do is throw it away as it was simply to expensive a commodity to ship in that was used by almost every ship that brought goods to your location, and then purchased more goods that were themselves packed in coir by the merchant selling them.
Nothing went to waste in these port towns when the expense to replace anything that could not be grown or made there was high...and neither would coir be.
My own theory is this coir on OI was a byproduct of the fishing station there in 1753 that had been used in shipping fish since at least 1580 up and down the coast to Cuba and beyond, and before that to ship goods to Cuba from other ports of the world, not suitable for that use anymore it was then used to filter in Smith's Cove for the salt works, they also needed.
Or it could have been a shipload of Templars that had no idea where they were going exactly or what was there an so took a bunch of coir with them instead of using that hold space for items like freshwater, food, tools, equipment and trade goods..and once there, decided to dump it.
You see, Roadhse, the Templars were Norse and as we all know, the Norse visited the New World. We have proof of this. Is it not reasonable to conclude that the Norse would have explored Canada's Atlantic coast? I mean, they were explorers, eh? So accepting that assumption as a fact, we can state that while they were exploring the Nova Scotia south shore they would have seen Oak Island. They would have passed on knowledge of this island on to the Templars who would have formulated their plan to bury their treasure even before leaving Europe.
Is that about right, Loki?
Since it is known that Portugese fisherman, and others, plied the waters around NS from at least 1580, transported their catch back to Cuba, which was being used as a central port to gather and disperse items from all over the world. It is just as likely, more so, that the coir came from those boats as to an unknown fleet of Templar ships..
I am more curious about the " few small factoids". Do you really have proof that the" Templars in Scotland lived and worked among the Scottish Norse population" or that the "Scottish Norse knew the way to what would become the Canadian shore"? All this while claiming you can dismiss all of the archives of the countries and institutions of the Mediterrean. Do you really think there are no gaps in these documents?
"all I premise of Oak Island is that Templars landed there."
Ok. let's go with that...
So then why would there be any coir there from them at all if they simply made landfall there and then moved on? Because they had been to the Med in their travels so they hauled this coir with them all that time and then decided to get rid of it on OI?
Why wouldn't a Templar ship sink if caught in a storm? They may have been the world's greatest sailors and yet they still were at the mercy of mother nature...or have you now elevated them to the stature of gods?
Your argument makes no sense, especially why the coir would be left a OI after hauling it across an ocean to no purpose...
Believe the seawater salt works theory or not for Smith's Cove, I don't care, but there is more documented proof for it over any other theory for why finger drains, well and a burn off area were found there...when you have more, let me know.
Lets nail down this Woods Hole thing. According to the report
from a letter from Richard C. Nieman of Beta Analytic, the company that did the C-14 test
"the sample was physically obtained by David Tobias from Smith's Cove behind an old board wall (first section North side) and spent the last 20 years or so in the island museum as sample 'S-2'."
Results of the test; date received September 30, 1993/ date reported October 6, 1993
calibrated age one sigma 1168- 1282/ two sigma 1036- 1298 there is of course still a minor error posibility.
It has been identified as coconut fibre at least 4 different times since 1937 including the Woods Hole team and the Lagina team. The Lagina team also C-14 dated their own sample of the material to a similar period, 50- 100 years later although as yet they have not provided confirmation of this (perhaps History Channel constraints).
Experts have shown in several different reports that coconuts did not appear anywhere in the Atlantic Basin, which includes all of the Caribbean and Mediterranean, until they were brought to the Atlantic by the Portuguse in 1499.
It is a known fact that coconuts were being manufactured into coir (packing, rope and other products) in India before the period in question.
It is also known that the Middle East, Cyprus, Egypt, Constantinople and other Eastern Mediterranean countries traded with India and China.
Of course Western Med. countries also traded in the same area, but Western Med. countries also kept very good records concerning trade and exploration, and none of them sent anybody to North America until 1492.
It is also a fact and well documented that the Knights Templar (a Catholic Order) was based on Cyprus in 1300, traded in the Eastern Med., and traveled back and forth from France to the Middle East.
In 1307, the Grand Master of these Templars, Jacques de Molay was ordered to France by Pope Clement V and asked not to bring any of his knights with him because he had plenty to attend him in France.
Against the order of his Pope, de Molay sailed for France with 60 Knights and their attendents including horses and equipment, also bringing much of the Templars treasure from Cyprus.
The Order learned of their pending arrest at least a month before it happened on October 13, 1307 and according to a documented testimony by a Templar leader escaped in a large number of vessels.
The vessels were never found and neither were several high- ranking members of the order, including Gerard de Villiers, Master of France, who became the most wanted man in France after the escape.
The Knights Templar had the vessels and the experience to sail great distances over open water, were the only ones who could have sailed to Nova Scotia with coir in their holds during that time period, and had a good reason for doing so.
A few small factoids; The Templars in Scotland lived and worked among the Scottish Norse population. The Scottish Norse knew the way to what would become the Canadian shore. Carbon dating is not effected by sea water, what is effected is the dating of plants and animals that lived in sea water. The Vikings did not trade in the Eastern Med. during this time period. If Tobias, who himself did not accept the Templar thing did produce a bogus sample, he must have looked for examples, had them tested in some other lab. until he found an example to suit his needs (I don't think so). Woods Hole took him at his word and he had witnesses.
Cheers, Loki
Uhhh....you yourself said it wasn't the end of their voyage, they simply made a stop there during the voyage...
But even if it WAS the end of a voyage...why would they dump this shipload of coir they had hauled so far, that they somehow felt a need for to even haul it at all?
That pretty much says it all too when you say "I personally believe nothing" when the proof of the drains being there are true...so now someone would build them and the other items for "nothing"...and you dismiss them even when proof of there existence is documented? Yet some coir, with no documentation except to as age, is used to build a premise that the Templars stopped on OI? Yeah buddy....that makes sense
