It’s Asterix the Brit...grave of fighter found
THE grave of a real-life Asterix resistance fighter has been found on a UK building site, experts have revealed.
The high-ranking Iron Age warrior, buried with his ornate helmet, headdress and weapons, is thought to have been a refugee Gallic fighter who fled Julius Caesar’s legions as they swept across Europe around 50BC.
In the popular French comic books, Asterix the Gaul led the resistance against the Romans at that time.
Archaeologists described the find as “the most elaborately equipped warrior grave ever found in England” and artefacts will go on display at the Novium Museum in Chichester,West Sussex, next year.
The grave was found in 2008 in excavations on a North Bersted housing development but it has taken years of painstaking work to prepare the contents for display.
Dr Melanie Giles, of Manchester University, said: “We may never know his name. He is either someone from eastern England who may have gone and fought with the Gauls, or a Frenchman himself who flees that conflict – possibly a real-life Asterix and coming to us, just as in [the film]Asterix In Britain, to lend us aid.” Chichester District Council archaeologist James Kenny said the warrior could have been a military leader for King Commius, who fled France after fighting Caesar. “What distinguishes the discovery from any other burial in Britain is the breathtaking quality and beauty of the artefacts and the range of his possessions,” he added.