VIDEO: Jersey’s Celtic history finally unpicked

Monday 23 January 2017

After more than three years’ work, conservators at Jersey Heritage have finally separated the last remaining coins from a record-breaking hoard of almost 70,000.

Local metal detectorists Reg Mead and Richard Miles discovered the hoard buried in a field in Grouville in 2012 not far from where another large hoard had been discovered in 1957. Because of this, the current hoard has been dubbed Catillon II.

It’s the world’s largest hoard of Celtic coins to ever have been unearthed - about six times bigger than anything found before.

The hoard was excavated by a team of archaeologists from Jersey Heritage, the Societe Jersiaise and Guernsey Museum, and taken to the museum where specialists began the long and painstaking process of separating the various items that had become enmeshed after being buried for around 2,000 years.

It’s believed the coins were buried by the Coriosolitae tribe of Celts around 30-50 BC, but no one is quite sure why.

Over the past three years the hoard has slowly revealed some of its secrets: around 70,000 coins have been unpicked, cleaned and been treated to help preserve them. A number of gold neck torques, jewellery, glass beads, a leather purse and a woven bag of silver and gold work have also been discovered hidden within the find.

Neil Mahrer, who has led the conservation project from the beginning said: “This final unpick is a significant milestone for the team. It has been painstaking but thoroughly intriguing work, which has delivered some very unexpected and amazing finds along the way. There is still plenty to do and I am sure the hoard will continue to surprise us as we clean and record the material.”

Although work is now finished on unpicking the hoard there is still a great deal of conservation and research work to be done. The lab at La Hougue Bie will re-open to the public this year as the team of staff and volunteers continue to clean and record the hoard’s contents.