Roman and Celtic artifacts which have never been on public display will be on show for the first time in a major new exhibition in Jersey.
Central to the soon-to-open Jersey Museum exhibition is a glass-walled lab in which conservators will work in full public view as they deconstruct the world’s largest hoard of Iron Age coins ever discovered – the Le Catillon 11 Hoard unearthed by two metal detectorists in Grouville in 2012. No one knows what will be found, but there is an expectation of revealing many thousands of coins, precious metals and jewellery. The exhibition is about more than just the coins though, and will feature Roman and Celtic artefacts from France and Guernsey. It will show how the Channel Islands and France worked as a region under Roman rule and how they were linked culturally and economically. Part of the exhibition – timbers from the Gallo Roman cargo ship dubbed Asterix when discovered in waters near the entrance to St Peter Port harbour in 1982. Since being lifted the timbers have been under conservation at the Mary Rose Trust in Portsmouth and have not been on public view before.
