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By Roy Goutté
On the 17th September 2015 I finally got to see the ‘Jersey Hoard’, a fantastic hoard of mixed silver and copper coins discovered in Jersey back in 2012 and said to weigh three-quarters of a ton! It was my first re-visit to my homeland for 5 years.
The hoard has recently been moved and now housed in the museum at La Hougue Bie. Since its discovery, by two metal detectorists, conservators have been removing on average about 500 coins per week out of the estimated total of possibly 50,000! But it’s not only coins making up this most amazing mass, for once coins started being removed, gold torcs and jewellery began to reveal themselves and to date seven torcs have now been exposed! An estimated value of the whole package has been put at over £10m which is a phenomenal amount! Even though they were just recording on the day I was there, you are able to observe the conservators at work as they painstakingly take the hoard apart, cleaning and conserving the contents as they go.
A notice informs you that the coins are made from a mix of silver and copper and why they are now dark green
Also hidden in Jersey’s eastern countryside at La Hougue Bie and within its grounds, lies one of Europe’s finest prehistoric monuments. At the heart of this tranquil site stands a medieval church atop a prehistoric mound under which lies a 6,000-year-old Neolithic Cruciform Armorican Passage Grave. Without a doubt this is the Channel Islands jewel in the crown and an absolute ‘must see’.
Now that the hoard is safely housed in the purposely built lab it is more reason to pay the site a visit. You certainly won’t be disappointed that’s for sure, but do take a torch along with you to view the inside of the passage grave as the lighting is minimal! Alternatively, check out this excellent website that displays the chambered tomb superbly.
Jersey Heritage itself has a very informative website here and here. Within the museum is a fascinating geology and Ice-Age area aside from other coin hoards, axes, swords and spears belonging to Jersey’s Neolithic community.
Just a part of the Ice-Age exhibition
As a reminder of more recent times, especially to the islanders (not that they need reminding that is) is a command bunker built during the German Occupation of Jersey and turned into a memorial dedicated to the slave-workers brought to the Channel Islands by invading Nazi forces during the Second World War and treated abominably. Personally, I chose not to enter this ‘museum in its own right’ as I find it too depressing and in a way not in keeping with the wonder of the other exhibits. Family memories and all that!
That aside, there is a large picnic area where you can enjoy a day out amongst the beautiful surroundings of this mainly peaceful and spiritual site.
A closer look at the hoard through the glass screen of the purposely built lab
A fantastic aerial view of the church atop the mound. The entrance to the passage grave can be observed to the left of the mound
The wonderfully constructed entrance to the passage grave
Both the grave and the church are orientated east/west, the tomb entrance facing east in common fashion. And just when the excitement of discovering the Celtic hoard at Grouville couldn’t have been more, this was then discovered at Trinity …again by a metal detectorist!
Say what you like about metal detectorists but without a doubt they have been responsible for re-writing much of our history by the finds they have made. In many cases it has been in areas not even considered by archaeologists so unlikely to have ever been discovered without their help. Such a shame that they are not given the credit due to them because of a small minority not playing by the rules and getting more attention than they deserve in certain quarters.
The ancient site of Palmyra, parts of which have now been destroyed by Daesh vandals Reuters/Mohamed Aza
Lancaster University has asked us if we’d reblog this article by Professor Natasa Lackovic. Here are the first three paragraphs of Professor Lackovic’s article; the rest can be found here.
“Details are still emerging of the scale of destruction on the heritage site of Palmyra in Syria. Now work is beginning by archaeologists at Oxford and Harvard, determined to create a digital record of the ancient sites that remain. They are planning to get thousands of 3D cameras into Syria and Iraq that can be used by people on the ground to take 3D images of the countries’ cultural heritage.
“This work is part of a growing trend to create heritage archives that can be used to support young people learning about world cultures. Online photo banks of heritage artefacts are growing. In the UK, there are quite a few heritage–based visual resources that can be used in the classroom, such as The British Museum’s project “teaching history with 100 objects” and the Wessex Archaeology collection.
“Recently, special attention has been placed on 3D heritage visualisations, especially in the emerging area of 3D printing for education. The start-up project Museofabber aims to 3D-print museum collections and use them in the classrooms, inviting teachers to send in requests for objects to be printed. Other 3D printing initiatives include 3D miniatures made by the Virtual Curation Laboratory and 3D printed bones at the University of Western Florida.”
A Saxon church in the village of Archita, Transylvania, before its ‘restoration’
Image credit and © DW/W. Blacker
Luke Dale-Harris reports from Sibiu, Transylvania, that churches, some at least 800 years old, are being “brutally revamped” using European Union funds. Original features have been stripped in restoration projects mired in conflicts of interest –
Standing to face a room full of angry conservationists, the Romanian Evangelical Church lawyer Friedrich Gunesch looks red faced and shaken. Over the last four hours he has faced accusations of corruption, ineptitude and the deliberate destruction of historical monuments, as restoration specialists and investigative journalists put forward evidence against his office. They are all trying to establish the same thing: How did an EU funded, multi-million euro restoration project end up wrecking many of Romania’s most treasured churches?
More here.
An artist’s impression of a section of the newly-discovered stone circle discovered in southern Britain
Image credit Ludwig Boltzmann Institute
An unknown stone circle, close to Stonehenge, may be the largest intact prehistoric monument ever built in Britain. BBC News reports –
Standing stones found buried near Stonehenge could be the “largest” intact prehistoric monument ever built in Britain, archaeologists believe. Using ground-penetrating radar, some 100 stones were found at the Durrington Walls “superhenge”, a later bank built close to Stonehenge.
The Stonehenge Living Landscapes team has been researching the ancient monument site in a five-year project. Finding the stones was “fantastically lucky”, researchers said. The stones may have originally measured up to 4.5m (14ft) in height and had been pushed over the edge of Durrington Walls.
The site, which is thought to have been built about 4,500 years ago, is about 1.8 miles (3km) from Stonehenge, Wiltshire. The stones were found on the edge of the Durrington Walls “henge”, or bank, an area which had not yet been studied by researchers.
The 1st century Temple of Bel at Palmyra before its destruction by Daesh
Image credit Bernard Gagnon. Source Wikimedia Commons
The United Nations says a satellite image has confirmed that the Temple of Bel, the main temple in the ancient city of Palmyra in northern Syria, has been destroyed by Daesh.
More here.
Late ninth or early tenth century fragment of an Anglo-Saxon knot-work cross. The cross is embedded in the east-facing wall of St Gregory’s Minster, Kirkdale, North Yorkshire
Image credit Moss.
More on Kirkdale here.
The Heritage Trust 