Geoffrey of Monmouth, a historian, published History of the Kings of Britain about the year 1138, which is the first comprehensive documented chronicle of King Arthur. Many other academics of his day did not at the time believe Monmouth's account. But even if concrete proof of the reality of Arthur, Merlin, Lancelot, and Guinevere has proven elusive throughout the years, their story has come to dominate public imagination.
Excavations of a Dark Ages palace on the Tintagel Peninsula in Cornwall Emily Whitfield-Wicks/English Heritage
However, a recently discovered building on Cornwall's Tintagel peninsula lends a tiny bit of credibility to the Arthur narrative. Archaeologists are reportedly seeking to find a sizable palace with three-foot wide stone walls and flagstone floors in the region that Monmouth claimed was Arthur's birthplace (or at least where he was conceived), according to David Keys of the Independent. The palace is the largest edifice from the dark ages discovered in Britain so far, and it was most likely constructed in the 6th century.
The palace is just one of a dozen buildings discovered on the Tintagel peninsula by ground penetrating radar studies, some of which probably housed laborers, warriors, and artists. However, since it was the middle centuries, whoever resided in the main building led a quite opulent existence. The researchers have proof that these people consumed wine from what is now Turkey and used olive oil from Tunisia and the Greek Isles. They ate off plates from North Africa and drank from French painted glass cups.
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 thinks the Arthur account is probably a synthesis of legends about a number of early British rulers, feels the new discovery may lend Geoffrey of Monmouth more credibility. "Hollywood versions of Arthur never happened. But behind it, I would certainly say there is more and more evidence that there was a British ruler at about the right time and in about the right place. It is not the Arthur of the manuscript, but it is not wishful thinking either."
Scutt, though, cautions against making snap judgments and claims that the researchers aren't seeking for Arthur-related signs. He explains to Rowley and Harley, "we don’t know what Geoffrey of Monmouth was drawing on: his was a work of fact and fiction and disentangling the two is fraught with difficulties."
We might begin to believe if the researchers find a staff that reads "Merlin," though.
