The world's largest collection of Celtic coins - found after a thirty year quest by metal detectorists - is going on display at Jersey Museum and Art Gallery from June 3

[View at source] asset_arena/0/33/28/482330/v0_master.jpg asset_arena/0/33/28/482330/v0_master.jpg Jersey Heritage

asset_arena/1/33/28/482331/v0_master.jpg asset_arena/1/33/28/482331/v0_master.jpg Jersey Heritage

asset_arena/2/33/28/482332/v0_master.jpg asset_arena/2/33/28/482332/v0_master.jpg Jersey Heritage

asset_arena/3/33/28/482333/v0_master.jpg asset_arena/3/33/28/482333/v0_master.jpg Jersey Heritage

© Jersey Heritage

© Jersey Heritage

© Jersey Heritage

© Jersey Heritage

© Jersey Heritage

© Jersey Heritage

© Jersey Heritage

© Jersey Heritage

Two years after a pair of metal detectorists found the world’s largest collection of buried Celtic coins, the Le Catillon II hoard is about to go on public display in a tale of life in northern France and the Channel Islands, covering the Roman occupation of Gaul and featuring a Roman chariot burial from Normandy.Reg Mead and Richard Miles spent 30 years searching for the coins before triumphing in 2012. More than 70,000 pieces are thought to be clumped in the solid mound of metal and earth, weighing three quarters of a ton and left as it was when it was gingerly lifted from the soil.A glass-fronted mock-up laboratory at the exhibition’s core will deconstruct the treasure through conservation insights, dating the coins to the Coriosolitae tribe of 2,000 years ago, who were based around Rance, in the area modern-day St Malo and Dinan.Each coin took six minutes to clean and preserve. Some of them would have crossed the Iron Age sea to Jersey, keeping them from the campaigns of Julius Caesar which drove tribal communities to the coast. Their burial may have been the ultimate way to save them.“This is a bold and innovative exhibition of some of the finest artefacts from the Roman-Celtic era,” says Jon Carter, the Director of Jersey Heritage.“Together they tell a fascinating story of life in this area 2,000 years ago.“Of course the coins are the centrepiece and we are very excited about what the hoard might yield, but it is important to put those coins in context and with the help of colleagues in Guernsey and France we have been able to do that.”The British Museum is also advising the island team on their important conservation work. Timbers from a Gallic-Roman galley which burned and sank in Guernsey, discovered by a 1980s scallop diver and held by the Mary Rose Trust, will go on show for the first time alongside the display.More from Culture24's Archaeology section: