A lake on Anglesey gave up more than a hundred and fifty objects to wartime airfield builders who had no idea they were digging into centuries of accumulated offerings.
Found while building a runway
In 1943, construction of a Royal Air Force airfield at Llyn Cerrig Bach disturbed the lake bed and revealed a large hoard of Iron Age metalwork, including chariot fittings, weapons, tools and slave chains, deposited into the water over what analysis suggests was a considerable span of time rather than in a single event, consistent with a long-running tradition of votive offerings made to the lake itself.
An island Rome specifically targeted
Roman writers described Anglesey as a stronghold of druidic resistance, which is part of why Roman forces under Suetonius Paulinus launched a deliberate assault on the island in 60 or 61 CE, a targeted campaign against the island's religious significance rather than an incidental conquest of unremarkable territory.
As this entry's companion article covers
The most frequently quoted ancient description of druids confronting Roman soldiers on the island's shore, and how that single vivid passage has shaped popular imagination of druidic religion, is addressed directly in this entry's companion article rather than repeated here.