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The finders of the Le Câtillon II hoard – which the Government agreed to buy for £4.25m last December – will be opening up about their experience in a talk next week.
Metal detecting enthusiasts and lifelong friends Reg Mead and Richard Miles found the clump of around 70,000 late Iron Age and Roman coins, fused with jewellery, in June 2012.
The hoard is thought to have belonged to a Gaulish tribe fleeing Julius Caesar’s armies around 50 to 60 BC.
Mr Mead and Mr Miles had been searching for the hoard for 30 years and combed an area of farmland in Grouville, having heard a story of “funny looking silvery buttons” that had been disturbed in a pot beneath the roots of a tree.
Pictured: The finders dig in at a site in Grouville.
The Government’s eventual purchasing of the hoard, almost a decade after its discovery, was controversial, with ministers agreeing to pay the £4.25m despite strong pushback from senior civil servants and Jersey Heritage, who maintained that a £2m valuation by the UK’s Government’s Treasure Valuation Committee made in 2017 was the appropriate sum to pay.
The talk – entitled ‘Treasures of the Armorican tribes’ – will take place at the Société Jersiaise’s headquarters on Pier Road between 13:00 and 14:00 next Thursday.
More information can be found on the Société website.
Archaeologist, researcher and investigative journalist, Pipeline Editor Andy Brockman, spoke to Express about the issues Jersey's £4.25m coin hoard decision has given rise to both at home and across the UK...
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