Secrets of the Dead (2000–…): Season 17, Episode 3 - King Arthur's Lost Kingdom - full transcript

- In the rich recorded history
of Great Britain,

one period is shrouded in
mystery and clouded by myth.

After an occupation
lasting nearly 400 years,

in 410 AD, the Roman army
abandoned the island.

History holds that Britain
then plunged into two centuries

of turmoil and violence...

known as the Dark Ages.

Legends tell of a great leader
who unites the lawless land

to fight off an invading horde...

King Arthur.

But how much truth
is there to the story?



♪♪

Now, new archaeological
discoveries

are rewriting this chapter
in Britain's history.

- It's really clear!

- With exclusive access
to unprecedented new finds...

- When you look at their bones,
you find a very,

very low incidence
of weapon injury, sword cuts.

- and using
groundbreaking science...

- It was one of those total
wow moments.

- Professor Alice Roberts

pieces together
the real story...

- It's just
absolutely phenomenal.

We've got continuous occupation
all along this strip

which is immense.



- to reveal how 5th and 6th
century Britain

was anything but dark.

- We're not looking at
an abandoned landscape

of desperate poverty.

- It's not necessarily the truth.

- It's about as far removed
from history as you can get.

- Modern archaeology could
finally uncover the true story

of King Arthur's Lost Kingdom.

♪♪

- This program was made possible
in part by

the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting

and by contributions to your PBS
station from viewers like you...

Thank you.

- In 410 AD, Britain suffered
a political catastrophe.

The Roman Empire that covered
most of Western Europe

had become over-stretched,

weakened by infighting
and external attacks.

After 400 years of prosperity,
the Roman aristocracy,

troops and bureaucrats
left the island.

♪♪

- Dies tenebrosa sicut nox.

It's a brilliant,
evocative way of saying

"Welcome to the Dark Ages."

- The common belief is that
the Roman departure

had a devastating impact
across Britain.

Without Roman authority,
society collapses.

The roads and towns
fall into ruin.

Civilization crumbles.

The era after Roman rule
became known as the Dark Ages.

But the truth is, almost nothing
is known about

what life was really like.

- For the period 400 to 600...
That's 200 years,

that's 8, 10 generations...
We know the names of...

you can kind of count them
on two hands.

For the whole of the period 400
to 600, in the British Isles

we have 2 or 3 people

whose writing
we have fragments of.

- In the absence of recorded
history,

stories about one powerful
leader became popular...

The great King Arthur.

But what truth, if any,
lies behind the legend?

What was 5th-century Britain
really like?

Professor Alice Roberts,

an expert in archaeology
and human remains,

wants to separate fact
from fiction

using scientific discoveries-

and find out
what really happened

at this pivotal moment
in history.

♪♪

Her journey to uncover the truth
about King Arthur's Britain

begins at the British Library
in London.

She's meeting Julian Harrison,

the Curator
of Medieval Manuscripts.

- So this is Geoffrey.

- Here we have one of
the earliest copies

of Geoffrey of Monmouth's

"History of
the Kings of Britain."

- It's a copy of a 12th-century
bestseller.

The writing on the
animal-skin parchment

is still crystal clear.

- The script is so beautiful.
It's so regular.

That's fantastic.

- 900 years ago, a Welsh monk,
Geoffrey of Monmouth,

wrote his own account
of the history of Britain.

His chronicle
told of a King Arthur

who ruled 600 years
before Geoffrey's time.

- Here we are. Here's the page
I want to show you.

- Geoffrey's manuscript
is in Latin,

the written language
of medieval Britain.

- I can recognize
the odd word here.

I can see concept

and then "eadem nocte."
- "Eadem nocte."

So, this tells you that
on this night, "eadem nocte,"

was conceived,
celebrated, King Arthur,

"Arturus," "Arturum."

- According to Geoffrey,

the mythical king
has a rather bizarre conception.

Arthur's father asked the wizard
Merlin to cast a spell

to disguise him
as the Duke of Cornwall,

so he could seduce
the Duke's wife.

- He's in the appearance
of her husband

and he satisfies himself,

and as a result
on that particular night,

on that particular occasion
Arthur was conceived.

- That moment as those words
appear on the page,

that's the beginning
of King Arthur as we know him.

♪♪

- A remote rocky outcrop
called Tintagel

in the far west of Britain
is where Arthur's story begins.

- It's in the top line there.
- That looks like "dece" to me.

- It says "dei" and then
there's a new word.

- Tin-ta-gol.
- "Tintagol." Exactly.

- Is this the first association
of Tintagel

as a place with Arthur?
- It is indeed.

- Packed with sex and violence,

Geoffrey's account unfolds
like a modern-day action movie.

- It's full of excitement,
it's full of horror,

it's full of lots of things
that an audience would love.

- And eager to please
his Christian audience,

Geoffrey came up
with the perfect bad guys.

With the Romans gone,

the ancient Britons
are vulnerable to attack.

In Geoffrey's retelling,
pagan tribes known as the Angles

and the Saxons swarm in
from modern-day Holland,

Germany and Denmark.

Their armies invade the east
coast of Great Britain,

destroying everything
in their path.

- I suppose he gives us
this idea today

that the Romans
abandoned Britain to its fate

and when the Romans go it
is just chaos.

There's plagues,
there's civil war,

there's the Saxons
just slaughtering everybody.

So it's real blood
and thunder stuff.

- But according to Geoffrey,
Arthur comes out of the West,

unites the Britons,
and leads the counter attack.

The result is a split country.

Embattled Britons in the west

and in the east,
new Angle and Saxon hordes,

that later historians combine
into a single entity...

The Anglo-Saxons.

This is King Arthur's Britain.

- In his account to simplify
it, yes, you get,

you get this sense
of the Britons are the ones

who are defending everything
that is right and good.

You get this sort of
frontier line

between these two
constantly warring factions.

It is "us against them."

It is Britons
against the Anglo-Saxons.

The Anglo-Saxons
are the forces of evil

that need to be destroyed.

Britons and Saxons are killing
one another,

and that's Arthur's world,
that is where he existed.

- Here it talks about his sword,
"gladio optimo."

- The best sword.

- And that was called Caliburno.

- Caliburn... Is that Excalibur?

- This is Excalibur.
- Yes!

- But in the original
it was called Caliburn.

- Arthur's sword is a weapon
of mass destruction.

- It tells you that
with Caliburn alone,

Arthur killed some 470 men
single-handedly.

He went berserk, essentially.

- 470 victims in a single rush.

I mean that is...

It's too extraordinary
to believe, obviously.

I mean,
he's being portrayed here as...

- He's a superhero essentially.
- Yeah, yeah.

- Geoffrey's book is the first
reference

to a King Arthur that we have.

Earlier accounts written closer
to the Dark Ages

don't mention
a king named Arthur,

but they do describe
a violent invasion.

The earliest description was
written by a monk named Gildas.

A few fragments of his text
are still legible.

- He's writing
in the 6th century.

And he isn't writing so much
a work of history.

It's more a polemical text,

criticizing the Britons
and blaming their evil ways,

their bad ways of living with

that's why they were conquered
by the Saxons.

This is one of the few passages
we can still read now

but he talks about the...
Like ravishing wolves.

The Saxons are loopy.

- Loopy yeah.
- They are obviously destroying.

In Gildas' terminology,

they are destroying everything
in their wake.

- So, again this is a,
this is an invading force.

This is the arrival
of the enemy essentially.

- Precisely.

- And the difficulty with these
kind of accounts

I think is that,
is that you're almost getting

a single view
of how this happened.

- Both Geoffrey and Gildas's
histories are highly subjective,

making it difficult
to take them at face value.

They can't be trusted as fact,

but they have given
Professor Roberts

something specific
to investigate.

They both describe a massive
invasion from the east

and the native Britons
resisting in the west.

And the archaeological evidence
supports this idea...

Anglo-Saxon artifacts

have primarily been found
in eastern Britain.

If great wars were fought,
evidence of mass slaughter

and conflict should lie
along this frontier line

of their supposed occupation.

Archaeologist Dominic Powlesland
has been flying,

digging and mapping a vast area

on the eastern side
of this imagined border,

near the village of
West Heslerton in Yorkshire.

- Clear prop.

Okay, ready Dominic?
- Yeah, I'm ready.

- Right, hold on
tight here we go.

Golf-Romeo-Romeo rolling.

- Will Dominic's research confirm
the written accounts

of a full-scale
foreign invasion?

- These fields underneath us

are entirely filled
with archaeology.

There's archaeology
in every single one.

- Dominic uses modern technology

to map every single artifact
relating to the Anglo-Saxons

found over 25 square miles
of what is today farmland.

It's taken an army of volunteers
40 years

to complete their survey.

- We've surveyed
all these fields.

- Roberts is here to find out
what the hard work

reveals about life

on the alleged frontier
of King Arthur's Britain.

Key to the process
is geophysical surveying...

A technique that uses
ground-penetrating radar

to map traces
of ancient structures.

- So, every single spot

here is a feature?
- Yeah.

So, all those dots
are individual features.

You can zoom
in to this area here.

- Click on that we get
all the finds information.

- Oh, wow!
- That's the plan,

this is the distribution
of finds within it.

- It just goes on and on!

You've got thousands of finds
coming out of every single

one of these features,
and hundreds of these features.

I mean, that's
a phenomenal amount of data.

- Yeah. About a million
finds altogether.

- What Dominic has found
is extraordinary.

But even more amazing
is what he hasn't found.

There are no mass graves
of defeated warriors.

No signs of battle
or conquest...

anywhere.

There is no evidence here for
mass slaughter of local Britons

by violent
Angle and Saxon tribes.

- I have never seen any evidence
of an invasion.

♪♪

- And the Anglo-Saxon skeletons
show few signs of violence.

- Once you start killing people
in large numbers

they leave themselves lying
around, you can't avoid them.

So, we don't see
lots of Anglo-Saxons

with massive injuries.

- When you look at their bones
you find a very,

very low incidence
of weapon injuries, sword cuts.

This is a society

that is playing with the idea
of a military world,

but doesn't actually seem to be
engaging with physical conflict

to a huge degree.

- And the findings here
are backed up elsewhere.

- Here's a very, very good
piece of science...

Of all the dead bodies dug up

that may belong
to the period 400 to 600...

And we have thousands of them...

Men and women, children,
old people, young people.

But of all those
thousands of bodies,

if you ask the number
of those bodies

that have sharp-edge
weapon injuries,

it's less than two percent.

Where do battles fit into that?

- The archaeology
makes it very clear...

There was no large-scale
conflict.

It's a stark departure
from Geoffrey

and Gildas's written accounts...
The idea of native Britons

fighting the invading Angles
and Saxons

doesn't reflect what's
being found on the ground.

Instead, the archaeology
reveals exactly what

the Angles and Saxons

who came to Britain were doing.

Dominic has pulled together
all the data

in what he calls The Wallpaper.

- It's just phenomenal because
all of that work comes together

to give you a picture
of a landscape

which is so densely settled.
- Yeah.

- The Anglo-Saxons weren't
blood-thirsty warriors.

They were farmers.

- We've got settlements here.

There's one here.
There's one here.

There, of course there's this
large one at West Heslerton.

We've identified 14,
probably now 15 settlements.

- Anglo-Saxon buildings
dominated the landscape.

The settlers imported
their traditional,

northern European
building style.

Structures were built in wood
with thatch roofs...

A style known as Grubenhauser.

- So, these blobs here
are the Grubenhauser.

- All of these little blobs?

- You see big houses there,
big houses here,

and lots of these Grubenhauser.

You will also see
this hamlet here,

a hamlet there,

a load of buildings there,
a load here.

You see... it's all joined up.

There's stuff everywhere.

- In the Anglo-Saxon period,
this area was densely settled...

Hundreds of buildings

in more than
a dozen separate communities.

♪♪

- Roger Lima.
Standby to land.

- I think that might be Alice
down there.

- Dominic's meticulous research
tells a very different story

from the common understanding
of a violent invasion.

♪♪

- Bit of a bumpy landing there.
- That's okay.

- Are you all right?
- Yeah, I'm fine.

- The picture that's emerging
in the east

is of a peaceful society,
not a violent one.

But what about in the west?

Will archaeologists find
any evidence

of either violent conflict

or a legendary king on this side
of Britons' Dark Age Divide?

Professor Roberts has access
to a new excavation

on the far west coast
of Britain.

♪♪

- And it's at Tintagel,
the very site where,

according to Geoffrey
of Monmouth,

Arthur is supposed
to have been conceived.

♪♪

A major archaeological dig
is underway here,

on a part of the island that has
never been excavated before.

♪♪

Archaeologist Win Scutt is
the site's curator.

- So, Win, introduce me
to Tintagel from the air then.

What are we looking at?

- Well, it's fantastic,
you can already see

one of the rectangular buildings

that dates to the 5th,
6th Century.

- So, this is the period you're
specifically interested in here.

- Absolutely, yes.

- In contrast to the wood

and thatch buildings
in the east,

there were more than
100 stone buildings here.

- Is that more?

- Some more over there,
absolutely.

It's a settlement
of hundreds of people.

- These simple dwellings
were first excavated

more than 80 years ago.

But in the summer of 2017,

a much grander complex
was discovered.

- We're excavating
behind these cliffs on...

These are the Southern cliffs
and there we are,

it's coming into view.
- Oh, there are the trenches.

- There are the trenches.
Fantastic, yes.

- And they're at work. We can spy
on them. That's brilliant.

- Really exciting.
- With only five weeks to dig,

the archaeologists rush to
gather all the evidence needed

to create a detailed portrait
of life in the 5th century.

Alice joins site director
Jacky Novakowski

to understand the significance
of the new excavation.

- Once we started taking off
the turf,

the stone walls started
to appear quite quickly.

So, it's been buried over
1,400 years ago

and now we are uncovering it
for the first time.

- They look very different to me,
to the remains of the buildings

that I have seen
on the eastern side,

which again are fifth,
sixth century

but much smaller stones
and much thinner walls.

- They're completely different
in terms of build character

and the amount of
sheer investment

that has gone into their build.

I mean, they are substantial.
- Well-built walls, aren't they?

- Yeah, they're extraordinary.

They are over a meter wide,
and you can see

that they are made
of large blocks of slate.

Very blocky material
and you've got them laid

horizontally forming
a really nice coursed wall.

- These buildings were built
to impress, I think.

And they're part of this larger
complex of other buildings

that go off in that direction,
and in that direction,

so you can see
we've got our work cut out.

- The team's findings
will be used to create

a 3D model of this apparent
5th-century citadel...

bringing Tintagel out of
the Dark Ages and back to life.

The buildings occupy a natural
terrace with a stunning vista.

Their prominent position,
substantial size

and thick walls
indicate a great deal of time

and effort was taken
in their construction.

There are strong hints that
whoever lived here

was someone important.

These people weren't farmers
like in the east of Britain.

- They do look like
they're high status.

This isn't people eking out

an existence up here
on top of Tintagel.

This is people living well.

- This is people living
very well, I think.

A lot more care has gone

into the construction
of these buildings.

We're working on the idea
that these buildings

are probably residences,
high-status residences.

It's all got the feel of an
extraordinary large settlement.

Which is maybe the place where
the most powerful person

who is living in this area
was resident at the time.

- A powerful Dark Ages
leader perhaps,

but it's still a huge leap
to say

that it could be King Arthur.

In fact, no one has ever found

any proof of the legendary
leader's existence,

let alone whether
he lived at Tintagel.

Just like in the east,

the team is unearthing evidence
of a peaceful lifestyle.

But it's a much,
much more extravagant one.

- That's a good piece.

- Ah, nice.

That is a nice high-quality
piece of tableware I'd guess.

There's a rim on the bottom.
That's sat on the table.

Beautiful.

- We've been finding a lot
of the fine tablewares.

And even some of
the dinner plates,

and the storage vessels
containing the wine

and olive oil are being broken
and just discarded around here.

- Whoever lived here was rich.

This is the biggest hoard
of this type of high-value

pottery dating
from the Dark Ages

that's ever been found
in Britain.

- That is really beautiful.

- And there are even pieces
of fine glassware

for drinking wine.

♪♪

The artifacts being unearthed
at Tintagel

are completely different
from the Anglo-Saxon ones

found all over the eastern side
of the country.

In this sense at least,
the archaeological evidence

and historical accounts
are matching up.

5th-century Britain does seem
to be a very divided country.

But divided by culture,
not violence.

But what happened to the Britons

in the eastern
half of the country

if the Saxons and Angles
did not invade or conquer?

In the last decade,

more than 100 skeletons
have been unearthed

in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery
in the eastern half of Britain.

And with them,
some important new clues.

♪♪

The remains of
one of the female skeletons

give Professor Roberts
a better understanding

of everyday 5th-century life.

- My first impressions looking
at this skeleton

is that this is somebody
who was quite gracile,

quite slightly built.

I'm looking at these teeth
really carefully.

If I look at the molars,

she's quite clearly
a young woman.

The third molar, the wisdom
tooth, comes through 18 to

21 years, and there's just
a little bit of wear on that,

But then if you look
at the front teeth

it's completely different.

The enamel has been completely
worn away

and they're flat on the surface.

So that suggests she's doing
something with her front teeth,

which isn't just
about food processing.

So perhaps using her teeth
as a tool,

maybe leather working.

Definite use of the teeth
just there.

- A fascinating glimpse of life
and work in the Dark Ages.

But it's the objects found
with her and other skeletons

that provide fresh insight.

Alice meets lead investigator
Duncan Sayer.

- So, we've got an adult
in the middle

with
two brooches on her shoulder

and a load of amber beads.

And next to her
is an adolescent.

And we have a child.

- Yes, a small child.
- Small child, yeah.

- It makes you wonder happened,

how they ended up
in the same grave.

- Well, it does doesn't it?

We've got round brooches
and we've got long brooches,

we've got cruciform brooches.

We've got all the works really.

- All what you'd expect from
an Anglo-Saxon cemetery.

No surprises there.
- No surprises.

Absolutely typical in every way.

- The grave goods suggest
these people were part

of the newly arrived
Anglo-Saxon group.

But archaeological evidence,
just like written history,

is open to misinterpretation.

So Duncan is using
high-energy physics

to examine one of the brooches
in greater detail.

♪♪

Here at the UK's
national facility

for synchrotron radiation,
a beam of electrons

is accelerated
almost to the speed of light

as it travels around
a 600-yard loop.

♪♪

As the electrons move,
they throw off

intensely-focused X-ray beams

that allow for
compositional data gathering.

The X-rays let Duncan probe
the chemical make-up

of a tiny part of the brooch.

♪♪

The results are unexpected.

- Okay.
So, do the blue areas

and green areas
represent different elements?

- Exactly.

The green bits highlight iron,

and the blue
bits highlight lead.

The lead tells us
that this is glass.

- It's a style of glass work
that's been seen before...

typical of Britons,

not the Angles or Saxons.

The brooch was made locally,
not imported.

- What you're doing is you're
taking out a glass,

grinding it up,
and grinding into it

the scrapings
from the inside of a crucible.

And then you bake it
into the holes into the object

and it makes enamel.

- Enamel like this was

a specifically British
production technique.

So although the style
of the brooch

is typical of continental Angle
and Saxon tribes,

it's either been made
by British hands

or by someone who learned
from a local.

- So, this is fascinating,
because it means

that this is not an import
from the continent.

It's an imported idea,
it's an imported style,

but it's a locally made object.

- Exactly.
- What appears to be jewelry

imported from Europe
was more likely made in Britain.

The results suggest assumptions

that these are all Anglo-Saxon
skeletons might be wrong.

Something more complicated
is going on.

The team needs a way to identify
the skeletons scientifically,

so they turn
to another modern technology...

DNA analysis.

Skeleton 82's DNA
is a close match to the DNA

found
in today's Dutch citizens...

She's genetically Anglo-Saxon.

But Skeleton 1
is genetically indigenous...

A match with ancient Britons.

Skeleton 96 is
an even bigger surprise...

A hybrid of British
and Anglo-Saxon ancestry.

It's a very small sample,
but it suggests

the Angles and Saxons
who arrived from northern Europe

didn't suddenly replace
the Britons in the east...

They mixed with them.

- People would probably not have
thought of themselves as Britons

or Anglo-Saxons.

They would probably have
thought of themselves

in a much more
local way than that.

- This is not a period
when people would have known

that they were members
of a particular nation state.

Nation states didn't exist,
people didn't have passports,

they weren't citizens
of one country or another.

- The story of Arthur
defending the ancient Britons

against an invading army
is likely a myth.

Despite Geoffrey
and Gildas's accounts,

the archaeology shows
the Anglo Saxons

didn't arrive overnight
en masse.

Instead, it was a slow
and gradual process,

probably over
a very long period of time,

not murdering the locals,
but merging with them.

- There are people coming
across the North Sea.

But they're not
entirely replacing

the group that are here.

They're bringing new styles,
new ideas,

new ways
of talking, new religions

which are adding to the mix
that's already here.

- It's not a full-scale,
you know,

replacement of one culture
by another.

- Over time, people are trading,
intermarrying,

even swapping fashions.

- We're seeing Britons
adopting Saxon-style brooches.

We're seeing Saxons
adopting Roman-style brooches.

- These things wouldn't have been
in these very clear-cut

identities
that we ascribe to today.

It would have been much,
much more complex than that.

- Eastern Britain is trading
with the Germanic world,

with the Saxon world,
with Scandinavia.

That's where their fashions,

that's where their trade
is being connected to.

- Given their geographical
proximity,

it makes sense
that Northern Europeans

would have formed connections
with Britons

in the east
rather than the west.

This is a radical new
understanding of life

after the Romans left Britain.

Far from being conquered,
the native Britons

in the eastern
half of the country

seem to have absorbed
the incoming Northern Europeans.

It was a time of trade
and integration.

But in terms of daily life,
little changed.

- I suppose if you think
of a sense like

if you take America
as an example

you've got African-Americans,
Italian-Americans.

People are adding things to
the various pot that is America.

That's what happening in,
in Britain in the 5th

and 6th century.

- And proof of the true story
of the Dark Ages

can be found today

in modern Britain's DNA.

Researchers at
the University of Oxford

have collected
thousands of DNA samples

from people across Britain

whose families have lived in
the same area for generations.

- We tried to focus
on individuals,

all of whose grandparents
were born in the same area.

So in that sense their DNA
had been there

at least for two generations

and probably quite a long time
before that.

- Peter Donnelly's work maps
regional variations in British

people's genetics in greater
detail than ever before.

Alice wants to understand
what modern genetics can reveal

about Britain's past.

- So, what do we see
on this map then?

What do the different colors
and different shapes represent?

- So each circle
or square or or triangle

represents one of the 2,000
individuals we sampled.

And then the combination
of color and shape

represents a genetic group.

There's a group represented here
in pink squares

that's one of
the genetic groups we saw.

There's another group
in blue circles.

There's a large group
across much of central

and southern England,

groups in, in South Wales
and North Wales

and so on as,
as we look through the country.

- And what I find utterly
extraordinary about it

is you've got all of these
different colored clusters,

which do seem to be
quite localized,

and I would just have expected

the whole thing to be
much more homogeneous.

- It was one of those total
wow moments that we don't have

too often in our career,
but it was really exciting.

- At first, it looks
like the genetic map supports

the historical accounts
of Anglo-Saxons

decimating the local population.

- Do you think this pattern
of red squares is explained

by a massive
Anglo-Saxon invasion,

replacing everything
that was there before?

- That's absolutely not the case.

What's interesting is if you
take a typical person

in Central and Southern England,

that accounts for
about 10% of their DNA.

So, we do see evidence
of the Anglo-Saxon migration,

I think clear evidence of that.

But it certainly wasn't the case

that they replaced
existing populations.

They contributed to the DNA
of modern English people

but in the minority of the DNA
that's there now.

- The surprise is that
Anglo-Saxon DNA has contributed

only around 10 percent
of the genetic variation.

- What's very clear is that most
of the DNA that's carried

by someone in Central
and Southern England

now is DNA that was there
before the Saxons arrived.

Not only did they not replace
the existing populations,

they mixed with them,

but they're a relatively
small proportion

of the ancestry of the people
now have.

- Even though
the archaeological record

now suggests differently,

the Anglo-Saxon invasion story
still fills the history books,

and Anglo-Saxon ideas shaped
British culture,

not least by inspiring
the English language

that's spoken all over
the world today.

But despite popular belief,

the genetics indicate
Anglo-Saxon immigrants

probably never outnumbered
the native Britons.

- Historians and archaeologists
have argued for decades

if not centuries over whether
the appearance of a new culture

really means that a whole load
of new people came in.

And we've actually never been
able to resolve that question

and now we're starting
to be able to do that.

- What's interesting
about genetics is it,

by definition it's reflecting
what happened to the masses.

Whereas often some of those
other sources are colored

by the successful elites
who impose languages

or impose political systems.

- In the east, the native British
and Anglo-Saxon people

merged on a large scale.

♪♪

But what about the west?

Why does Tintagel seem
so wealthy in comparison?

And why is King Arthur so
strongly connected to the site?

This is Fort Cumberland,

the home of Historic England's
Archaeology labs.

Many of the finds from Tintagel
are analyzed here.

♪♪

The fort is a scientific
production line,

turning excavation
into information.

♪♪

From the new site at Tintagel,
130 gallons of soil filter

through the flotation tanks.

The experts can finally separate
the Arthur legend

from archaeological fact.

Alice has come to meet
pottery specialist Maria Duggan.

She is one of the experts
examining the unprecedented haul

of pottery shards
unearthed at Tintagel...

and looking for clues
about the lives and identity

of the people who lived there.

- So, this is our really
characteristic fine-ware form

for that late 5th Century,
early 6th Century.

And we've got about 14 vessels
of the same form.

All slightly different.

- So, that's a bowl is it?
- Yeah, it's a big dish.

So it's actually quite big, it's
probably about 30 centimeters.

- The distinctive shape indicates
the bowl was not made locally.

- So that's coming from Turkey?

- Sort of Western Turkey.
- Yes, yeah.

- It's come a long way.

- This fragment of pottery
connects Tintagel to what

would then have been Byzantium
in the Eastern Roman Empire.

There are hundreds of pieces
to examine.

- The vast majority
of the finds are amphorae,

so they're storage vessels
for transport of wine

or olive oil, things like that.

Also other fine wares.

So we've got some
North African material.

And also, from southwest France
so from the Bordeaux region.

- Right. So, it's coming in
from all over the place.

- Yeah.
- When you find

a blooming great
sherd of Roman amphorae,

and not just one sherd
of amphorae,

but buckets of the stuff,
that tells you

that there's trade
and diplomacy and interaction

and people are moving across the
European landscape and seascape.

- These artifacts demonstrate
that the Mediterranean

and the Atlantic coasts

were incredibly well
connected to Tintagel.

- Tintagel is producing evidence
that's showing us

how active those trade routes
were in the...

The 5th and 6th centuries,

that you do have this material

that's coming up
from the Mediterranean

up the Atlantic Coast
and is clearly being valued

and perhaps traded up
that Atlantic seaboard.

- While eastern Britain
interacted with northern Europe,

western Britain traded with
Byzantium in the Mediterranean.

Tintagel was clearly

an important
international port of call.

So, what would it have
looked like in its heyday?

- Yeah.

- Co-director of the site,
James Gossip,

has made a detailed
architectural survey of the dig.

- Okay. Can we have a spot height
on the hearth, Martin?

- Combining measurements
with thousands of photographs

creates a perfect virtual record
of the new site.

- So, this is towards

the sea, isn't it?
- Yup.

You can really see
how the buildings are part

of a planned design,
with shared spaces.

- The complex is laid out
over upper and lower terraces.

The upper building
has a 32-foot room

with a 16-foot side-room.

There's a smaller building
next door

and a large open courtyard...

All connected by a central path.

- What you can see is a series
of steps leading up

into this opening
in our upper building,

connecting the building
with the trackway

that runs
between the two terraces.

- An area of carefully-laid
stone floor strongly suggests

some rooms may have had
a special function.

- It's a really nicely laid
surface of fairly thin slates.

What's noticeable about that is
how fragile and delicate it was.

When we walked on it,
we noticed that, you know,

some of the slates
might break pretty easily.

- You do wear big boots though,
to be fair.

- True, but I tried it out
in bare feet as well.

- Unlike the well-worn floors
in the rest of the settlement,

this section
is much more delicate

and in pristine condition.

- That suggests that perhaps
it's,

it's a really
quite special floor.

Perhaps it was a space
that wasn't really designed

to be walked on very often.

What that means about
the function of the building

we don't really know.

- But I suppose it suggests

that it's not
an ordinary domestic dwelling.

♪♪

- This new data helps generate
the first 3D model

of the entire Tintagel site.

The complex may not look
opulent to modern eyes,

but to Dark Age visitors,
it would have felt palatial.

It's among the most substantial
post-Roman buildings

found in southwest Britain...

and a complete departure

from how we thought people
were living at the time.

♪♪

But people weren't just sailing
to Tintagel

to sell exotic goods.

Tintagel must have had
something worth buying.

- For the people who are coming
up the Atlantic seaboard

they would see Tintagel
in the distance,

that is the place
that they are aiming for,

that is their destination.

It's an important harbor

that will give them
the resources that they want.

- Whoever ruled Tintagel,
had access to a rare commodity

in high demand across Europe.

The secret to Tintagel's
Dark Age wealth and power

lies at the end
of a quiet country track.

This is a vast tin mine...
Just 15 miles away.

Exploited by the Romans,
it was still in business

at the beginning
of the 20th century.

What looks like a natural gorge
was once a massive mine...

120 feet deep, 130 feet wide,
and 900 feet long.

♪♪

Tintagel lies on the larger
peninsula of Cornwall.

The rocks in this area are one
of only three sources of tin

in Western Europe.

The metal was one of the reasons

the Romans came to Britain
in the first place.

- Whoever's been mining
that stuff for hundreds of years

is going to get rich
because the Mediterranean

needs those resources.

They will come to you
to get them.

- Tin, when mixed with copper,
makes bronze...

Vital metal for Roman weapons.

Even after the Romans
left Britain,

Europe continued
to buy Cornish tin.

- Whoever controls Tintagel
is at the head

of a large financial empire.

We mustn't think of them

as being on the margins
of anything.

They are at the center of a very
sort of dominant,

successful political world.

- In dramatic contrast

to the traditional view
of the Dark Ages,

trade in the west does not
collapse after the Romans leave.

The connections to the continent
remain,

and they continue to influence
every aspect of life.

Evidence for this influence

is found on the very last day
of the Tintagel dig.

Jacky Novakowski's team

makes the most exciting
discovery of all.

It's a stone, used to make
a windowsill in Building 94.

And someone's been
writing on it.

- There's at least three lines.

It's either an "A,"
with a hat on.

♪♪

- I think it's okay actually.

♪♪

I'll wrap it up first.

It's very heavy, yeah.

- The stone is transported
to the labs

at Fort Cumberland
for closer study.

James Gossip gives Alice access
to this rare find.

- So, this is it?
- This is it.

- It's really clear.
That's amazing.

- The letters were scratched
with a sharp tool,

roughly, as if for practice.

- It's not in its
original position.

Probably only ever
a trial piece anyway.

Just somebody practicing
their inscription.

So presumably, once this was
created as a trial piece

it wasn't that important anymore

and it was incorporated into
this wall where we found it.

- It's one of only a handful
of inscriptions

from this period ever found.

The Dark Age etching gives
precious insight

into the lives of the people
living at Tintagel.

First, there's a distinct flavor
of Roman Latin.

- So, the top line is here,

possibly "Tito,"
which could refer to Titus.

- So that's a Roman name.
- That's a Roman name, yep,

popular in the Roman
and post-Roman world.

Here we've got a word
which could be "Viridius."

Another name,
another Latin name.

Or "Viri duo."

- I think I can make out
the letters here.

I mean that looks like "Fili."
- Yup.

That's right.

- But there's also local dialect.

- What does this say here?

- We think this is perhaps
"Budic"... B-U-D-I-C.

There's a word that's common
in Welsh,

Breton and Cornish contexts.

- Ah, so this,
so this isn't Latin?

- That is not Latin, no.

That's Bretonic or...
- Yeah.

- It's the Cornish
word form basically.

- The people here seem to be
fluent

in more than just one language.

- And then a "T" here?
- Yeah.

Perhaps, um, T-U-D.
"Tud."

- A possible translation is...

"From Titus, to Viridius,
the son of Budic Tuda."

The text's layout and few
legible words

indicate the inscription
was for a monument.

It was discarded at the time,
but centuries later,

it's exciting proof
of a sophisticated culture.

- This is a lovely "A."
That's a really nice style.

- This is the style of lettering

that they're using in manuscript
at the time.

It might even have been designed

to be a deliberate
Biblical connotation.

- It takes time and skill
to inscribe stone,

and money to pay for it.

The writer was part of a complex
and wealthy society

that valued both faith
and craftsmanship.

- And this coming out of
the Dark Ages

when we used to think people
were living in hovels,

scratching around, illiterate.

- Yeah.
But actually created

by a literate
Christian elite at Tintagel.

- I wonder who did it?
I want to know.

- Perhaps Titus.

- So we're seeing these sort
of debased forms

of Latin inscription
surviving in Cornwall.

But it does tell us that what
we've got there

is a literate society.

They're not at the margins
of anything.

- Civilization didn't collapse
when the Romans left Britain.

Tintagel in the west
stayed connected, thriving

and interacting with Europe

as it had probably done
for centuries.

The archaeology has revealed
so much about Tintagel

in the Dark Ages.

The prominence and stature
of the buildings

being unearthed here,

along with
the high-value pottery

indicating the apparent wealth
of their residents,

may help explain
another mystery...

The connection to Geoffrey
of Monmouth's King Arthur.

- The dig at Tintagel is showing
us that this rocky promontory

sticking out into the Atlantic
was not only a trading hub,

but also a remarkably
high-status site.

So perhaps there was someone,

someone powerful, who much later
would inspire

that myth of King Arthur.

- King Arthur was a construct,

created from fragments
of the written historical past.

But Geoffrey chose Tintagel
for his birthplace

because it really was a seat
of power in the Dark Ages.

- And that in a way is what we're
talking about

when we're discussing Arthur.

He is the literary creation

based on that
kind of primary evidence.

Whether or not he was real
I think is irrelevant.

It's the period itself that...
That is essential.

That's what draws archaeologists
and historians to it.

It's so important
for understanding

what made Britain today.

- The biggest revolution
in Dark Age archaeology

has been this recognition
that Britain is fully connected

to the continent
all the way through.

♪♪

- The maritime connections
are absolutely crucial here.

Tintagel is connected down
to France and Spain

and up to Wales,
Scotland and Ireland.

It's right at the center of
this Atlantic trading network.

- But in the east of the country,

the connections were to Northern
Europe... the Angles and Saxons,

with their very different
beliefs and culture.

♪♪

All the archaeological evidence
points to two societies

not facing each other
across a battlefield,

but living very different lives.

- It's an economic divide
between two halves of Britain,

two distinct trade outlooks.

It's not a picture of conflict.

- The two halves of Britain are
looking in different directions,

going outwards rather
than clashing in the middle.

- I think if you look at the sea
instead of the land,

and the rivers instead
of the land,

I think you have a much
better chance of understanding

where people are coming from.

♪♪

- At Tintagel, the excavations
are complete.

The new discoveries
have revealed

that rather than being filled

with violent
conflict and turmoil,

the Dark Ages were a time
of trade and continuity.

Somewhere
between the archaeology,

written history and myth,
a new truth has emerged.

- There are elements in there
that all feed

into one another and all help...

Help us to understand the past,
and you've got to try and master

all these things to really get
a clear understanding

of what's going on,

especially something
like the 5th or 6th century.

- But the myth
of King Arthur endures.

♪♪

- It's a myth.

But it's such a wonderful myth.

- He's a literary invention...
A romantic hero

who embodies
the ideal of kingship,

and not
a real historical figure.

- It's still something
that resonates today

because we all sort of need
an heroic character

to defend what we think
is right and good,

and it's Arthur who sort
of fills that void.

- This program was made possible
in part by

the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting

and by contributions to your PBS
station from viewers like you...

Thank you.