France’s biggest trove of Gaulish coins has been unearthed in Brittany. Archeologists found them while searching along the route of a bypass under construction in the Côtes d’Armor. The coins are in the hands of specialist restorers and will go on display in the département.

The trove consists of 545 gold-silver-copper coins: 58 staters and 487 quarterstaters. ‘Stater’ is the generic term for antique coins. They lay a foot beneath the earth’s surface near Laniscat, 64km south of Saint-Brieuc, at a known Iron Age manor house or farm site, and date to 75- 50BC. They are very well preserved.

Inrap, the national institute for preventive archeological research, which has the right to investigate sites ahead of infrastructure work, reports similar finds in the 1930s at Guingamp and Perros-Guirec, but says the latest trove is the biggest yet. Searching ahead of construction work, an Inrapled team found a single coin about 30cm down, then began a systematic search.

They found another 50 coins the same day, then brought in metal detectors and found the rest. They believe the coins were all buried together but were disturbed over the centuries by ploughing. Read Full Story