A DOCUMENTARY film about the research into a Iron Age bronze mirror will reveal more about the rare artefact.

Staff at the Oxfordshire Museum want to use the film to explain hidden secrets behind the 2,000-year-old mirror which has been on display since December.

Film-maker Sharon Woodward, from Banbury, said she jumped at the chance to work with the Woodstock museum on the film.

She added: “It was amazing to see the mirror up close and watch the experts take a sample of it to analyse.

“I love making these documentaries. They are fascinating and one aim is to get great things like this out to audiences, not just in Oxfordshire but around the world.”

The mirror was found by a metal detectorist near Didcot in 2006 and the museum had to raise £33,000 by September last year, with grants and donations from the public, to prevent it being sold abroad.

Research on the mirror involved taking a small sample to analyse.

Using a sample from another mirror found in Bedfordshire, researchers found they had probably been made in the same place at the same time and from the same molten bronze.

David Moon, archaeology curator for the county museum, said: “By taking a sample we would get a massive amount of extra information not available by any other means – information not just about the chemical composition of the mirror but about the manufacturing processes used to make it as well.”

Speaking of the film, he said: “As we had such a public campaign to buy the mirror we felt it was very important that we should document the research we wanted to do.”

The eight-and-a-half minute documentary will be shown at 8.45pm on Monday on the community channel, UK Freeview 63, Sky 536, Virgin 233 and Freesat 651, before being shown beside the museum display.