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Prediction: "Boltgate" Will Have a Very Short Shelf Life

1/22/2016

16 Comments

 
I wrote a post yesterday about the claim that three Roman crossbow bolts were found embedded in a thousand-year-old tree on Oak Island.  Putting aside the known puffery and dishonesty of the source, there are basically two questions we can address:  

  • Is the "discovery" story plausible?

  • Are these items Roman crossbow bolts?

The answer to the first question is almost certainly "no." Think about it and read through some of the comments on yesterday's blog post - there's not a lot that makes sense about the "found in the middle of a tree" story. I think we can throw that out as nonsense.

The second question can be addressed in two ways. One, you can ask if these items appear to be similar to documented Roman crossbow bolts.  Two, you can ask what else the item could be.  

I chose to focus on the second approach, speculating that maybe the items were cast iron "spear" finials for a fence or perhaps some kind of rotary tool bit.  Finding a modern item that matched the "crossbow bolt" better than an actual crossbow bolt would allow us to pretty much dispense with this one. In my search I found an item for sale on Etsy (for about twenty bucks, to be shipped from the Ukraine) that was billed as Roman crossbow bolt. That "discovery" of mine has since been Huttoned, and is now being posted around the internet as evidence that the Nova Scotia items are the real deal.  That kind of grasping is a prime indicator, I think, that Boltgate isn't going to last very long. Enjoy it while you can.

The best explanation for the "crossbow bolts" so far has come from the Oak Island Compendium blog. Last night, they published this post showing how similar the "crossbow bolts" are to the metal spikes used in a logging tool called a Peavey.  The spikes are replaceable in case they get damaged. They expanded on that today, offering a side-by-side comparison of the Oak Island "crossbow bolt" and the spike from a Peavey:
Picture
Comparison of the alleged "Roman crossbow bolt" (left) and a Peavy spike (right). Image from the Oak Island Compendium blog.
All things considered, I'm comfortable calling this one a swing-and-a-miss for the Lost Legion of Roman Scotia.  

Got anything else?
16 Comments
Peter Geuzen
1/22/2016 11:18:07 am

No database or infographic or poster required.

Reply
Andy White
1/22/2016 11:55:03 am

Yeah, but did you see the Log Driver's Waltz?

Reply
Jonathan Feinstein
1/22/2016 12:15:31 pm

Loved the waltz!


And I hope you are correct about the longevity of "Boltgate" it will give us time to breathe before he produces 100% authenticated Roman vomitorium feathers.

Bobby B.
1/22/2016 12:28:56 pm

@Jonathan Feinstein. Hutton may not turn up Roman vomitorium feathers, but he may come out with that 100% confirmed, smoking gun, history rewriting, Roman urinal they found on Curse of Oak Island the other night. It was the "strange" rock with "jack hammering" in it when they were tying to lay out that grid.

Reply
Cleo
1/22/2016 12:29:11 pm

I've been studying the Hercules sword hilt from the second point of view of what it tries to be in Hutton's narrative-- a Roman sculptural element. The origin of it might be too murky to ever pinpoint exactly.

Analyzing the composition of the piece appears to be helpful. I showed this sword to my better half (she has a degree from a college of arts and crafts design). She, interestingly, commented that a figure seems to have been "dressed" in a very straight cut lion skin suit with little detail that suggests that it might be applied onto a more realistically detailed figure. The possibility that a relatively 2-D clay (i.e.) lion skin may have been wrapped onto a more detailed figure is suggested by the front meeting fold. The only detail in the lion skin appears to a be a very linear belt. The paws and head may very well be clay modeled additions. The back of the piece shows no continuing detail. That in itself is not consistent with Roman sculpture which tends to be detailed from all points of view.

The face is another hint. Roman Sculpture tends to still be Hellenistic. Hair is more often than not portrayed as curls. This figure has a straight haired pointed beard (I am referring to the 3-D generated scans of an earlier post). The nose is quite prominent. In fact, it looks a lot more like a later Christian facial representation of Jesus Christ than any Roman rendering of Hercules I've seen.

If the origin of the creation is Italian and Victorian or later, as the analysis suggests, it is no great stretch to think that the existing tourist ware market was heavily invested in modeling and producing JC figures. I'm wondering how likely it is a clay figure may have been dressed up and modified, from let's say a man on a cross or carrying a cross, to the figure we know. The 3-D side view of earlier the post is very vertical.

Just thought I'd fire that into the discussion.



Reply
Andy White
1/22/2016 12:33:56 pm

You're on the wrong thread - this one's about logging tools.

Just kidding. Like it matters.

Interesting thought! That's something else to look into. The spread of the legs doesn't seem very crucifixiony, though.

Reply
Cleo
1/22/2016 12:45:38 pm

Doesn't really have to be. I'm suggesting that a clay impression of an existing mold could have been altered (legs spread, arms straightened) and then used to produce another mold.

Someone just interested in exploiting a market may very well just cut corners and use what he had at hand and not remodel completely from scratch.

Peter Geuzen
1/22/2016 12:46:57 pm

See this other posting on Oak Island Compendium ?

http://www.oakislandcompendium.ca/members-only.html#/20160106/joy-steeles-post-about-the-dating-of-petrogly-5138756/

In anticipation of Glyphgate, the alleged Roman soldier glyph that keeps getting copy-pasted by JHP (and called his own pic without proper attribution) is confirmed by the N.S. Museum Curator of Ethnology to be post 1500 A.D.

Reply
Jonathan Feinstein
1/22/2016 04:20:30 pm

Can't help but paraphrase Phineas and Ferb here:

"Aren't you boys a little young to be Roman warriors?"

Reply
Bob Jase
1/22/2016 12:52:25 pm

"metal spikes used in a logging"

So Paul Bunyan was Roman as well as being a Nephilim?

Reply
Graham
1/22/2016 01:46:58 pm

I'm not sure if this has been bought up, but the website through which this has been publicised 'The Epoch Times' is listed on Doubtful News as an untrustworthy news source.

It is one of three set-ups (The others being the Huffington Post and the Australian National Review.) where I suspect the intent of the creators was to provide a legitimate seeming front page for the promotion of fringe ideas in a pseudo-news format.

Reply
Matt Boulanger
1/22/2016 02:55:34 pm

Andy, just emailed you with this, but it's too priceless to not share with the rest of the group.

You can buy these on eBay for $25 bucks, shipped from Oregon....except these versions are Chinese.

http://tinyurl.com/gv6dwmt

http://tinyurl.com/zbcp5a4

Reply
killbuck
1/22/2016 10:01:21 pm

Zounds! The photos look impressively familiar

Reply
Matt
1/25/2016 02:52:08 pm

For me, the peavey point is a possibility but not a slam dunk. The one alleged artifact we've seen has an awfully thin tang for the job of manhandling logs. The peavey points I see online have a much lower contrast between the point and the base, better able to hold up to any side-to-side force being applied---which is not an issue for a projectile weapon. Peavey points also look bigger/longer than these mystery artifacts. Has anyone posted the size of the "crossbow bolts"? Are there smaller peaveys where a small point with a narrow tang would be common?

Totally agree the origin story is a big problem, a common theme with Oak Island stuff. If three of these metal objects were indeed found in close proximity within a beam manufactured from an Oak Island tree, then peavey points don't make sense even if the objects are not crossbow bolts. Since the origin story has about as much weight as the story behind the origin of the sword...who knows. Right now, I've yet to see a "fingerprint match" for any theory as to what these are.

Reply
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