An “incredible” hoard of Celtic coins, weighing almost a ton and believed to have been rushed across the sea in a bid to escape the clutches of Caesar’s armies during the Late Iron Age, has been discovered by two amateur metal detectorists in a Jersey field.

The solid mass, thought to contain up to 50,000 coins, was hidden by the Coriosolitae tribe of the modern-day St Malo and Dinan region.

It originates from the year 50BC, when the Roman ruler’s forces drove tribes towards the French coast as they advanced, and would have been buried after arriving from the Armorican area – now known as Brittany and Normandy.

“It is an amazing contribution to the study of Celtic coins,” said the Curator of Archaeology for Jersey Heritage, Olga Finch, who was told about the hoard by Reg Mead and Richard Miles, a duo who have spent decades detecting on the island’s Parish of Grouville.

“The fact that it has been excavated archaeologically is also rare, and will greatly enhance the level of information we can glean about the people who buried it.

“This new addition will make Jersey a magnet for Celtic coin researchers. It reinforces just how special Jersey’s archaeology is.

“This is an incredibly important archaeological find of international significance.”

Conservator Neil Mahrer, Robert Waterhouse, of historical group the Société Jersiaise, and Dr Philip de Jersey, an archaeologist for the States of Guernsey, united with the finders, farmland owner and local police to study the site and hoard on terrain pointedly protected as an Area of Archaeological Potential.

Jersey Heritage and the Department of the Environment are now attempting to increase the site’s level of protection by making it a Listed Place.

Officials say the conservation and identification of the coins will require “an incredible amount of work”. Mead, Miles and the landowner have suggested the hoard should be given to the island and put on public display.

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