admin The Monmouth historian Geoffrey published The History of the Kings of Britain around 1138, the first fully documented chronicle of King Arthur. Many other scientists of the time did not believe Monmouth’s version.
But while concrete evidence of the reality of Arthur, Merlin, Lancelot, and Guinevere has remained elusive for years, their story dominates the collective imagination. However, a recently discovered building on the Tintagel peninsula in Cornwall lends some credibility to Arthur’s story.
According to The Independent’s David Keys, archaeologists are looking for a large palace with meter-wide stone walls and flagstone floors in the area Monmouth says was Arthur’s birthplace (or not his design).
The palace is the largest medieval structure ever discovered in Britain and was probably built in the 6th century. The palace is just one of twelve buildings discovered by radar on the Tintagel Peninsula, some of which are believed to have housed workers, warriors and artists.
But since we were in the Middle Ages, the people who lived in the main building were quite rich. Scientists have evidence that these people consumed wine from present-day Turkey and olive oil from Tunisia and the Greek islands. They ate from North African dishes and drank from painted French glass goblets.
The worldwide feast demonstrates that even though the Romans left Britain in 410, they probably resumed trading with the country, particularly with Cornwall, to gain access to Cornish tin a century later. “The discovery of high-status buildings – potentially a royal palace complex – at Tintagel is transforming our understanding of the site,” Winn Scutt of English Heritage, the government organization financing a five-year excavation at the site, tells Keys. “It is helping to reveal an intriguing picture of what life was like in a place of such importance in the historically little-known centuries following the collapse of Roman administration in Britain.”
Could the palace be related to a real-life King Arthur? The complex most likely belonged to the Dumnonian kings who, throughout the Dark Ages, ruled over that region of Cornwall. Those buildings may have been deserted at the time Monouth penned his tale, but their history may have been passed down orally.
According to Graham Phillips, author of “The Lost Tomb of King Arthur,” the evidence “is showing there could indeed be some truth behind the earliest stories about King Arthur’s birth at Tintagel. If nothing else, it means the legend about where Arthur was born isn’t so fanciful after all and deserves further investigation. It is going to start a whole new line of investigation by historians.”
According to Rowley and Harley, Geoffrey Ashe, a historian who believes Arthur’s story is likely a synthesis of legends about many early British rulers, believes the new find may lend credence to Geoffrey of Monmouth.
“Hollywood versions of Arthur were never made. However, I would definitely say that there is growing evidence that a British ruler existed at more or less the right time and place. It’s not the Arthur of the manuscript, but it’s not wishful thinking either.
However, Scutt cautions against jumping to conclusions and says researchers are not looking for signs related to Arthur.He explains to Rowley and Harley: “We don’t know where Geoffrey of Monmouth got his inspiration from – his work was based on fact and fiction and it’s hard to distinguish between the two. »
We might begin to believe if the researchers find a staff that reads “Merlin,” though.
Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news
