‘Le Catillon II: investigating and conserving the world’s largest Iron Age hoard’ (LIVE STREAM or ZOOM and RECORDED: Details will be sent to members closer to the date.)

In early 2012, two Jersey detectorists discovered the Catillon II Iron Age hoard. This contained nearly seventy thousand coins, eight complete gold torques and numerous other pieces of jewellery, apparently buried around 30-40 BCE by the Coriosolitae tribe from the nearby French coast. Having excavated it intact, it was decided to disassemble the hoard and record its contents at a level of detail never attempted before. A computer-controlled metrology arm was used to record the position of every coin and other item to a sub-centimetre accuracy before removal. A laser scanner was also used to record the entire hoard at various stages of disassembly. In this way, a complete three-dimensional virtual map of the hoard contents was created. Work is currently underway to link this map to the object database of coin type, age, and so forth and this is already leading new discoveries about the hoard’s origins and burial.