NOT LOOKING FOR KING ARTHUR. This article on the National Geographic website by Kristin Romey reports on what archaeologists hail as “an incredibly important find”. Archaeologists have begun a five year project near Tintagel in southwest England, on the coast of Cornwall. During the summer the archaeologists have found evidence of over one hundred buildings—one hundred!—which appear to date from the fifth to seventh centuries A D. The project has drawn attention because the legend of King Arthur says that Arthur was conceived at Tintagel.
The association of the site with Arthur is controversial. English Heritage commissioned a likeness of Merlin carved into the cliffs at the site, and this has been attacked as “Disneyfying”. Romey quotes one of the archaeologists on the site: “The Arthurian connection is a purely literary, legendary connection….There’s absolutely no way we would start a research project [with the goal of] looking for Arthur.”