Archaeologists returned to excavate the Medieval Tintagel Castle located in Cornwall, which is a place usually linked with the legend of King Arthur, who was said to have been conceived there.

The excavations last year uncovered a selection of stone-walled structures on the southern terrace of Tintagel Castle’s island area, with substantial stone walls and slate floors reached by a flight of slate steps. Archaeological works at the castle have also revealed evidence of fine dining and luxury in the late 5th and early 6th century, in form of leftovers of oysters, burnt livestock bones, and discarded wine bowls and glass goblets. Some of the glass and pottery ware was imported from remote places like Turkey and Spain. Researchers believed that it was almost certainly a royal site with trading links to the Mediterranean.

Among the discovered artefacts are a Phocaean red slipped ware bowl from Turkey, amphorae or jars from southern Turkey or Cyprus, and fine glassware from Spain, as well as iron brooches and dress hooks, knives and nails. This year the archaeologists plan to open up a much larger area on the southern terrace to get a look at the scale and size of the buildings they had discovered and find out when they were built and how they were used. It is believed that the fall of the Roman Empire threw Britain into obscurity, but excavations at the site, which revealed, substantial stone buildings, fine table wares from Turkey, Spanish glassware, and remains of feasts of pork, fish and oysters, prove it was otherwise.

(after The Guardian,  Belfast Telegraph, BBC News, English Heritage & Emily Whitfield-Wicks)