Europa: National Archaeological Discoveries

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Dr Philip de Jersey FSA, States Archaeologist, writes:

I’ve been an archaeologist for my entire working life, since first volunteering as a digger at Castle Cornet in 1982, when I was 16. In fact my interest goes back even further, to when I was about eight or nine years old and digging holes in the garden of my parents’ house near Saint’s Bay. From that age onwards I knew that this was what I wanted to do.

Although I studied Geography as an undergraduate at Oxford, I was able to switch to archaeology as a postgraduate, supervised by Professor Sir Barry Cunliffe, one of the leading archaeologists of his generation. Barry encouraged my interest in the Iron Age and entirely by chance I became a specialist in Iron Age coinage. I hadn’t collected coins, or had any particular interest in them beforehand, but there weren’t many people working in this field and I carved out a niche looking at coins from Britain and from Brittany and Normandy in France.

I worked in Oxford for about 15 years, and then in 2007 the opportunity arose to become the States’ Archaeologist. As the job I had wanted to do since being a child, it wasn’t a very difficult decision to make to return home. We have an extraordinarily rich archaeological heritage in these islands, and I’ve had the privilege of excavating sites ranging across thousands of years, from the Neolithic dolmen of La Varde, through Iron Age, Roman and Medieval settlements up to Second World War fortifications.

At the moment the site that most excites and intrigues me is Longis Common, on Alderney. Since an accidental discovery in an electricity trench in 2017 we have been excavating an Iron Age cemetery and Roman settlement concealed beneath the sands on the Common. The quality of preservation is exceptional, and with sufficient resources this could be the Pompeii of the Channel Islands.

Whether or not it’s me who excavates it, I’ll be delighted to have been in there at the beginning!

With special thanks to Dr Philip de Jersey FSA and Andy Lane MA PCIfA (Assistant Archaeologist) for their valuable assistance in the preparation of this stamp issue.

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