More than a decade ago, metal detectorists Reg Mead and Richard Miles unearthed what proved to be the world’s largest Iron Age Celtic hoard.
They found 70,000 silver coins, 11 gold torques (neck rings) and jewellery in a field on the south-east coast of Jersey.
Why such a spectacular treasure had been transported to an isolated and unpopulated area with hazardous coastal reefs more than 2,000 years ago had been an enduring mystery – until now.
Archaeologists believe that the £4million hoard was spirited to Jersey so that it would not fall into the hands of Julius Caesar’s Roman army during the Gallic Wars.
A geophysical survey around the site of the hoard’s discovery has identified a Celtic settlement, overturning an assumption that Jersey was a remote backwater in the mid-1st century BC.
A major study of the site is published this week by the respected Wreckwatch Magazine, with support from the educational Highlands Foundation of Jersey.
The discovery by Mr Mead and Mr Miles came in 2012, after a 30-year search. The pair immediately reported their extraordinary find to the government-backed charity Jersey Heritage.
Because Jersey is a Crown dependency, the find was processed under England’s Treasure Trove Act 1996.
More than a decade ago, metal detectorists Reg Mead and Richard Miles unearthed what proved to be the world’s largest Iron Age Celtic hoard. Above: The 70,000 coins that were found in the hoard
The discovery by Mr Mead and Mr Miles came in 2012, after a 30-year search. The pair immediately reported their extraordinary find to the government-backed charity Jersey Heritage
The Government of Jersey bought the haul for £4.25m, and the treasures then went to the island’s La Hougue Bie Museum.
The hoard is believed to have originated in Armorica, the ancient French region that is now Brittany and Normandy, because most of the coins are linked to the Coriosolitae tribe, whose name may derive from the Celtic ‘corios’ meaning army or troop.
The geophysical survey has exposed linear anomalies spanning several tens of feet, parallel and perpendicular to each other, some with subdivisions that echo those of Late Iron Age rural Celtic settlements in northern France.
The Société Jersiaise, collaborating with France research body INRAP (Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Preventives), used scientific techniques of magnetometry and electromagnetometry to analyse the clay content and soil moisture in the fields to differentiate between man made structures and natural geology.
Dr Hervé Duval-Gatignol, Société Jersiaise’s archaeologist, said that, from this period, it is primarily ditches, pits, postholes and hearths that are likely to exist – ‘effectively ‘ghosts’ left in the earth’.
The identified features are ‘consistent with known forms of rural settlements of Late Iron Age date in Armorica’, he added.
Dr Sean Kingsley, Wreckwatch’s editor-in-chief and an archaeologist who has explored more than 350 shipwrecks in the last 30 years, said that the Celts were innovative boatbuilders and sailors.
‘By the time Caesar attacked Brittany in 56 BC, the Celts’ seaborne trade was a well-oiled machine.
They found 70,000 silver coins, 11 gold torques (neck rings) and jewellery in a field on the south-east coast of Jersey. Above: The torques
The Government of Jersey bought the haul for £4.25m, and the treasures then went to the island’s La Hougue Bie Museum. Above: Conservator Neil Mahrer examining the hoard in 2012
Magnetic anomalies identified during the Grouville geophysical survey, showing linear anomalies, likely ancient settlement remains
One of the coins found in the Le Câtillon II hoard
Gold torques & jewellery among coins revealed during the conservation of the Le Câtillon II hoard.
‘Practical knowledge about low and high water times, the locations of shoals, winds, weather and landing places had long been passed down from generation to generation.
‘In light of the dangerous shoals in the approaches to Jersey, it is possible that the Câtillon II hoard was shipped on a hide boat vessel resembling the gold model of a boat from Broighter in Northern Ireland.
This 1st-century BC sea craft was equipped with a sail, steering oar pivoted near the stern and, crucially, nine oars on each side, which would have been invaluable to overcome unfavourable wind and steer clear of reefs.
Ships built with hide or leather water-proof coverings fastened to a framework of light timbers sound flimsy but could be strongly constructed, light and flexible, ideal to ride the crests of high waves in the unpredictable Atlantic seas or for landing in almost any cove.’
He added: ‘Another new take is that we believe the landscape was sacred to the Celts, with ancestral power going back millennia, linked to a Neolithic megalithic tomb perched on the hilltop above the hoard discovery site.
The excavation in 2012. The find turned out to be the world’s largest Iron Age Celtic hoard
Reg Mead (left) and Richard Miles (right) examine a copy of the Le Câtillon II hoard on display at the La Hougue Bie Museum in Grouville
‘There’s something incredibly special about these fields. The spiritual power of the ancestors is likely to have been a big reason why the hoard was brought to Jersey.’
Discussing whether an ancient Celtic temple or settlement could lie under the soils of Le Câtillon, Mr Mead said: ‘Only digging can prove the truth.
‘But one thing’s for sure. These soils were thought to be sacred, not just in Celtic times but for millennia.’
Mr Miles told Wreckwatch: ‘The discovery of one coin would have made me a very happy man at that time in my life because I hadn’t found a single Celtic one before…I just wanted to hold a 2,000-year-old coin.’