Camelot: The Archaeologists Digging For The Real King Arthur | Myth Hunters

[Music] sh according to Legend he was Britain's greatest King the name of King Arthur resonates very deeply with the British King Arthur LED his Knights at the round table from Camelot a vast spectacular castle built on a hill but was the legend of Camelot based on reality or simply a myth it's a very fuzzy and vague place it's it's it's glorious and it's glamorous if King Arthur really did exist then the remains of his castle Camelot should lie buried somewhere in Britain but where in the 1960s a team of archaeologists used the latest technology to try to prove the legend was real they were led by Leslie OK a brilliant energetic showman who brought modern archaeology into the mainstream and in 1966 lesli oop was one The Rock androll archaeologists of his day ok identified a hill in Somerset close to glastenbury as the most likely location for Camelot but could he really prove Pro it was the site of King Arthur's castle if he succeeded it would be one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the 20th century the man who would lay claim to Camelot was born in Manchester in 1925 as a boy Leslie oock was a brilliant student determined to better himself both mentally and [Music] physically dad seems to have been full of energy and drive I found in his cycling diaries that he used to cycle 30 mil a day before going to school in the mornings um and and you see that intellectually as well he won a scholarship to Manchester grammar and then another to brn College Oxford but his education was interrupted [Music] during the second world war OK was posted to India where he joined the seventh gerka rifles he became fascinated by the subcontinent's history and archaeology he learned that the past isn't just what people write in textbooks but often something tangible hidden in the ground in India he would eventually go on to work for one of Britain's most flamboyant archaeologists sir Mortimer wheeler the story I'm telling you is not fantasy Wheeler's role was quite crucial in a way one of the newspaper reporters said if he hadn't turned into a great archaeologist he'd have been a matina idol moreover we can relate this evidence was an amazingly charismatic character which it is agreed it's towards the end of his active life but nonetheless um boy could he still carry it on and um I mean terrible El goats still D was invited by sorta to work at madaro this incredibly important dig into the center of the indust civilization and I think he was taken on for a lot for his language skills for his ability to get on with the locals as much for his archaeological skills in 1946 OK returned to a very different Britain to the one he had left post war with its Empire crumbling the country was shattered hungry and in need of a lift a country desperate for new heroes in the early 1950s morale was boosted by the British expedition's conquest of [Music] Everest and Roger Bannister breaking the 4-minute mile reminders that Britain could still be great he'd obviously used up his last an of energy but what an achievement for banister and Britain but there was one hero from the past people turned to more than any other [Music] the modern growth of Arthur is something that happened after the second world war when people were thinking more about NA national roots how they came to be so and so forth there was a Resurgence of interest in the Aran Legends I think primarily because King Arthur was seen as a figure who United his country in order to fight off Germanic Invaders King Arthur was known as The Once and Future King Legends said he would rise again and restore Britain to Greatness part of the story is that Arthur is not really dead he's in the aisle of Avalon or he's in a cave of sleep or some somewhere and the idea grew up that somehow other Arthur would return and there would be a new golden age in such was the fascination with King Arthur post-war historians and archaeologists wanted to prove the legend was based on facts not just myths and that Britain's very identity was forged Under the Blade of the mighty king King Arthur was supposed to have ruled in the Dark Ages around 500 AD he was said to have been born on the Cornish aisle of tintagel under the watchful eye of the wizard [Music] Merlin The Story Goes that Arthur became the true king of the Britains as only he could draw the sword Excalibur that had been set in stone he valiantly defeated in Vaders who came across the sea from Europe and in one battle singlehandedly killed 960 Men He unified his country from Waring factions he defended it against Invaders he led a band of knights the Knights of the Round Table who were famous for their Adventures for finding the holy grail and rescuing damsels in distress and at the heart of the Legend lies Camelot Arthur's magnificent Castle sometimes it said to have been built and designed by Merlin the magician it's impregnable it never Falls to Invaders having several rings of walls around a central keep with great gate houses and Towers on them it's got to be a suitable place for a glorious King and his glorious court so it's Rich it's towering ramparts it's horses which are clad in marvelous armors and people in beautiful robes all being very gracious it's a fabulous place but separating the legend of camalot from Real History was almost impossible because people weren't writing about events in Dark Age Britain in fact there were no history books at all so there's no record of King Arthur or camela at the time the first mention of Arthur was not until the 9th century 300 years after he was supposed to have lived in a book called The Historia brittonum Historia brittonum told a story about a historical author who conducted a series of battles against the Anglo-Saxons and emerged from these battles as the great Victor the author of Historia brittonum isn't a king he is given a title duk Borum which just means the battle leader or War leader however there is no mention of Camelot in the historian bonum but academics reasoned that a great War leader must have led from a great castle of some kind Camelot the castle doesn't appear until the 12th century when a writer called Jeffrey of Monmouth first mentions it as well as King Arthur's magnificent Round Table he depicted Arthur's Court as a place of chivalry where the king treated all Knights as equals Jeffrey Monmouth concocted his history of the kings of Britain this has its centerpiece the life and career of King Arthur it's the first place where for example his wife Queen Gwen is mentioned his fabulous Court his amazing weapons thanks to Jeffrey of Monmouth the legend of King Arthur and Camelot was [Music] born the idea that Arthur had a great castle at his court became increasingly inextricable from The Legend um of Arthur and his Knights who could now be seated around a Roundtable in a magnificent Castle but because the King Arthur of Legend existed in the Dark Ages not the Middle Ages when the texts were written there was there was no way of proving through recorded history alone that he actually lived history hit is an award-winning streaming platform built by history fans for history fans enjoy our Rich library of documentaries covering key events and locations of the medieval period history hits medieval offering features leading historians such as Dan Jones Elena yanega and Cat jman not only that but we have a rich library of audio documentaries covering every period of History through our network of podcasts sign up now for a free trial and Chronicle fans get 50% off their first 3 months just be sure to use the code Chronicle at checkout in fact because recorded history was so scanned it was not until the 20th century that archaeologists began piecing together the story of Dark Age Britain after the Romans had left a time of supposed chaos and barbarism the idea formed that maybe archaeology could offer answers where the history books had failed and just maybe the remains of King Arthur's great Castle could be found very deep beneath the ground it became one of the Century's great quests of popular archaeology when Leslie oock was growing up one of the first to Pioneer the new search for what was now being called Arthur's Britain was archaeologist Raleigh [Music] Radford for 5 years he excavated around the ruins of Arthur's legendary birthplace and what some believed had been his castle the aisle of tintagel in Cornwell what he found were Pottery fragments from half a world away fragments that completely contradicted Notions of the Dark Ages incredibly these fragments were from Storage jars that once contained the luxury goods of their day like wine and olive oil the importance of the Mediterranean Pottery is it actually showed links with the late Roman world to have this material suddenly coming in and recognizing as being from dated contexts in the in the in the Mediterranean it was a bolt of light radford's Pottery showed that rather than being chaotic leaderless and isolated some Dark Age Britain were actually very different Raley Radford with these fragments of high status Pottery was demonstrating that far from elapse into to barbarism a break with Rome Roman Traditions Roman civilization and culture had still been continued by the Britains in the face of the invading Saxons radford's discoveries raised the extraordinary question if dark AG Britain were trading in luxury goods who would they have been destined for if not a king or leader of some kind could tinel have been a receiving port for a leader in the west of Britain where King Arthur supposedly reigned because of radford's pioneering work excitement grew that maybe King Arthur really had existed and that archaeology might even turn up something with his name on it perhaps the mighty sword Excalibur or the remains of the Round Table maybe even Camelot [Music] itself among those profoundly influenced by radford's discoveries was Leslie ok who in the 1950s was an assistant lecturer in archaeology at Cardiff University on his first major dig OK stumbled across the Dark Ages almost by accident he started digging at a site called Dennis Paris just outside Cardiff um and he did that as a um uh thinking that he was going to be dealing essentially with an iron agite to his great surprise OK was able to prove the Iron Age Hill for at Dennis po had been reoccupied in the Dark Ages a thousand years later ok's excavation sparked an interest in post Roman Britain that would define his [Music] career by the 1960s he became fascinated by new technology and techniques in archaeology that he believed might get to the bottom of the King Arthur myth once and for all and what better way to start than finding the site of Arthur's legendary [Music] Castle but in a country with dozens of claims to be the original site of Camelot working out where to dig was the biggest challenge of all for Dad archaeology started very much before the digging and what I always found was he was always looking in um what was written so much is taking the writings which the historical record and find trying to find out if the historical record is true or the places talked about in historical record can we identify them by examining every mention of the castle in the hundreds of stories that had been written about King Arthur OK gradually picked out the main candidate in the Middle Ages Jeffrey of Monmouth and the Romance Writers had said that Camelot lay in Caron in Wales but that was thought to be based on the presence of a Roman Amphitheater that looked like a giant Round Table another possible candidate was found in mallerie's Mort darur published in 1485 S Thomas mallerie tried to ground his version of the arthan Legends and he's very clear that Camelot isn't Winchester mallerie's theory was based on what was thought to be King Arthur's round table which hangs in the Great Hall in Winchester carbon dating has in fact shown it was made for King Edward the 700 years after King Arthur was supposed to have [Music] existed but it was the writings of John leand antiquary to King Henry VII that really peaked ok's interest in 1542 leand wrote that a hill next to the Village of South Cadbury in Somerset was the location of King Arthur's [Music] Camelot leand quite specifically dismisses all other candidates of Camelot except for Cadbury he picks up the camel name from the local Village names Queen's camel place like that leand sees in these very steep slopes and the ramparts there and the matural he gets almost oasic about how marvelous and how brilliant it all is Leen said generations of locals had called the hill Camelot a fact that had even drawn the attention of ok's Mentor in India Sam mortima Wheeler They said that their tradition was that they' had been told by their fathers and their grandfathers that uh King Arthur used to resort to this place and it was known as Camelot or Camelot that's the only real evidence we have a local tradition it's quite possible I won't say more than that that there is a little element of Truth in this local author Jeffrey Ash who had written several books on King Arthur was so convinced that cabri could become a he approached Raleigh Radford asking him to dig the site Cadbury is Big the enclosure at the top is 18 Acres Riley Redford was very much interested in Arthur but when I asked him could we excavate Cadbury his response was it's too big I wouldn't know where to start but then Radford changed his mind thanks to the findings of a dog walker on the hill at cadri Mary herfield she got up there to walk her dog the dog's name was Caesar and she would walk about in plowed up Fields there and poke about the with the feral of an umbrella which is the most elementary form of archaeology Mary herfield turned up fragments of pottery that she thought was unusual and presented it to Raley Radford Mary herfield fragments were almost identical to radford's finds at tintagel Raley Radford who had a vast experience of excavation throughout the West country immediately recognized as what he called tentagel Weare um High status table Weare High status storage um jars fragments from the Eastern Mediterranean so oil wine and other luxuries had been sent up from tinel to Cadre for someone of high status exactly at the time that King Arthur was supposed to have lived and these weren't the only clues that made OK and Radford one want to excavate what could have been King Arthur's Castle cadri had clearly been fortified at some time its banks ridged with Earth and ramparts possibly to protect a large army just as Arthur was supposed to have led and it was located just 11 M from glastenbury with its arur Ian associations and would have been on the front line in battles with invading Anglo-Saxons pushing West even the Ordinance survey map used to call it Camelot Radford alock and Wheeler staked their reputations on discovering Camelot at Cadbury failure to find it wasn't an [Music] option in 1965 the Camelot research committee sat for the first time tasked with the excavation of South Cadbury s Mortimer wheeler agreed to be president offering advice from afar wheeler compared their quest to the late 19th century discovery of an ancient city also thought to be entirely fictitious until archaeology had proved otherwise one of the things which uh sorton wheeler was very very keen to stress was that it was possible for archaeologists to discover legendary locations he said if Heinrich schleman could find Troy then why shouldn't English archaeologists be able to find Camelot the man who had started the search for King Arthur at tintagel Raleigh Radford was the committee's chairman the last surviving member of the committee today is AR thean author Jeffrey Ash but I was co-founder and I was secretary I was the one who wasn't actually an archaeologist I kept the minutes and things like that and handled the correspondence Leslie oock was the final Committee Member selected as the outstanding Dark Age archaeologist of the day Leslie because of his reputation as an excavator and his knowledge because of dinner's poers as well as his wider archaeological knowledge um was was invited to come on board and appointed as director of excavations unlike Radford all was undaunted by the scale of Cadbury I think it was the challenge of South Cadbury which is what appealed to Leslie it's a time of big projects um the BBC were digging silbury Hill for the first time and South cabry was going to be if he got the money a big project but on a Hilltop of 18 Acres working out just where to start digging was in many ways more of a challenge than digging itself OK was pioneering in his early use of geophysical surveying in deciding where to [Music] excavate it's often said that Leslie oop was one of the rock and roll archaeologists of his day he was actually at The Cutting Edge of the white heat of Technology he used every technological means at his disposal to make sure that when when they finally got picks and shovels out they were digging in the right [Music] place D Morgan Evans was a young supervisor on the search for Camelot who was tasked with using the new [Music] technology one of the the clinches there was the use of what became called the soil anomaly detector um and and rather than calling it sad it was called the banjo 17 it looked like a banjo it had a Round Disc at one end and a box at the other connected by a long metal pole 25 what you had to do is you laid out 20 M grids and you walked along calling out measurements at every few intervals 31 these are then written down by somebody it became really repetitive boring it was awful but it wasn't just advanced technology OK deployed to work out where to dig he was prepared to humor some of Jeffrey Ash's new age beliefs I used dowsing sometimes called water divining but it needn't be only water it can detect the other things liy very generously allowed me to do it now I think this was Brave of him because we were working with the media that breathing down our necks and could so so easily have been made ridiculous to say that they're dealing with ding [Music] rods back at base OK began to analyze the data from his geophysical [Music] surveys he could tell the site was originally Iron Age but could it have been reoccupied and refortified at the time of King [Music] Arthur the banjo readings seem to suggest so there was only one way to know for sure when you're faced with a mass of preliminary evidence there's only one way to resolve the problems and to sort it out and that's to [Music] excavate but a dig of this scale needed a lot of money the Camelot research committee had to somehow raise £15,000 to finance the excavation the equivalent to almost a quarter of a million pound today however the committee knew just using using the very word Camelot was guaranteed to get people's [Music] attention in America Camelot the musical had been the biggest show on Broadway President Kennedy's Inner Circle had been named after Camelot the name Camelot was on everyone's lips capturing imaginations on both sides of the Atlantic using the name Camelot was incredibly significant Leslie orot was very keen to popularize archaeology and the idea of King Arthur and Camelot might lead to an appreciation of history in these Dark Ages was important to him as a democratic way of explaining to beyond the elite of Academia exactly what he was digging up with donations from the BBC the pilgrims trust in America and an exclusive deal with the Observer newspaper finally the committee raised enough to begin the [Music] Dig but none of the archaeologists knew that one of the committee had personally taken a huge Financial Risk to ensure the excavation could proceed we were aware of the money constraints we had to spend Leslie at times would get very Twitchy um which doesn't surprise me because I only learned later on that he at one stage he'd actually put up um uh his house of security ly orok was a brilliant manager a brilliant organizer and considering the troubles he was up against he was a very courageous man [Music] the dig for Camelot took place on the top of the hill and on the southern side where a major trench was dug from top to bottom it was a time of really quite high tension because there was a need to deliver it was a funny mixture of excitement tension and used to come away absolutely rung out and and feeling like a a wet dishcloth at the end of [Music] it ok's Team cataloged all their [Music] discoveries and hopes were dramatically raised when someone found an artifact fact in the shape of a letter but all the letters it had to be in the alphabet was a letter a and that of course caused huge excitement at the time the a had to stand for Arthur surely proof of cadry's claims to Camelot OK was so pleased with the find he persuaded sir mortima wheeler to come and see Arthur's broo but after careful analysis the a is discovered to be a Roman brooch dating from before the Dark Ages it couldn't possibly be Arthurian despite the setback ok's team pressed on the moral boosted by regular appearances of s mortima wheeler he said to Le Z dig there beautifully did dig there and found things so Mor was quite right but he had an instinct by then you [Music] know alcock's other great mentor and collabor Ator rale Radford would regularly visit the dig to check on [Music] developments Radford was sort of almost an amateur archaeologist in his own way as a gentleman of independent means although he was taken very seriously in some ways Raley Radford was an inspiration to a whole succeeding generation of archaeology and not surprisingly Leslie OK started digging at a lot of the sites that Raley Radford had first drawn people's attention to another regular visitor to the site was ok's son John I think South caby was just very special when you look to the side of a trench you you're talking lay after layer of History there's my dad standing beside saying to me well that's the medieval Lair that's the Dark Age Lair the dig for Camelot was getting huge publicity after 6 weeks of excavations ok appeared on the BBC to explain their progress well we've now reached the end of our work in 1966 and both the traces of buildings that we found and the finds uh particularly give us every reason to believe that we've got a good sight here of the 6th Century ad in [Music] particular by now interest in the Dig had spread Beyond Britain OK needed to raise more money for further excavations and was given a huge boost by an unexpected Source one evening I was was at home the telephone rang I picked it up and a voice said this is Warner Brothers where was [Music] Camelot Camelot the Broadway musical was being turned into a major Motion Picture starring Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave they wanted this for the film you see they were going to put a map in the film so I said it was in Somerset well of course I said that that's my one contribution to Hollywood for Leslie OK Hollywood's interest was another great marketing opportunity you're talking about a time when Camelot had come out when the Aran Legend was assassination to everyone and my dad saw that by pushing that side of it that this could be Camelot he would get money to do the serious excavation and what's more by going to America he could tap into a much bigger Market with more money in the summer of 1967 the search for Camelot started up again thanks to the film the committee raised enough funds principally from America to continue digging for another three [Music] Summers [Music] well it's the time when um flowers are coming from San Francisco you've got um Sergeant Pepper and lowly heart chump ban it's sort of hippie era it was all high degree of interest and with the television cameras and the newspapers and that it was all very very buzzy [Music] the dig for Camelot went on for a further three years as it drew to a close in 1970 OK made two extraordinary breakthroughs his team found a late Roman coin of Dark Age Origin buried in the fortifications that proved that the rampart stated almost almost exactly to the time Arthur was supposed to have existed the Eureka moment if you like where they realized that there was some substance to the Legends which had got them digging was discovering this wasn't only an iron AG Celtic site that maybe some Saxons had lived on top of but in the actual artherion period had been fortified had been turned into an actual castle and if it was a dark AG Castle who was to say it couldn't be Camelot but then ulok made an even more remarkable Discovery the remains of a Great Hall a hall littered with Dark Age pot shards almost certainly used for banqueting by a great ruler at the time of King Arthur maybe even Arthur himself at South Cadbury there was a gigantic Hall a hall at least 20 ft across that could easily have fitted something of the size and scale of the round table at Winchester for example it was proof surely that Camelot lay at South Cadbury here was my Dad saying actually I'm the guy with the physical evidence I've got the great big Hall you know I've got something that is far more likely to be arth's Camelot than anything anyone else has [Music] found if the castle was surrounded by Dark Age fortifications and contained a great leader feasting Hall it seemed King Arthur really could have ruled from [Music] Cadbury are you yourself convinced that these were the defenses of King Arthur himself well in my most cautious mood I would only go this far to say that um if it isn't Arthur himself then it's another great military leader so like him that it doesn't make tons of difference OK and his team were triumphant they basked in the knowledge that they had shown the legend of King Arthur and Camelot to be real after [Music] [Music] all but little by little doubts about the dig at Cadbury started to emerge academics began to question ok's methods and his evidence there's nothing at South cury which would make one believe that there was an Arthur in the 6th Century than one did without it in terms of finding evidence for a historical arthor it it completely failed every generation of archaeologists challenges those that went before it they challenge their assumptions and they they challenge their findings that's the discipline of archaeology believing that a war leader called Arthur led the Britains in their heroic defeat of the Anglo-Saxons in the 6th century is akin to believing that an Englishman in a dinner jacket called James Bond defeated the Soviet Union in the late 20th century the evidence for King Arthur's Great Hall on Cadbury was highly dubious at best they said it wasn't big enough for a round table at all it gets called a great hall but to be honest it's actually quite a small Hall an awful lot is placed on the shoulders of a really rather modest building Not only was there no archaeological evidence even the historical texts which OK had based his research on were questionable to say the least the new Skeptics dismantled the written foundation stone of ok's Arthurian claims rather than being a history they said the Historia brittonum which first mentioned Arthur was a work of 9th century propaganda and had its chronology of the Dark Ages all wrong David dunville's work in the 1970s completely discredited most of the evidence that orock and other supporting the idea of a historical arthor ad used obviously this had a pretty negative impact on The credibility of ok's work some hinted that ok had committed historical heresy he had tried to give credibility to works of fiction rather than establish the truth even the very idea of of Arthur the heroic Britain battling invading Anglo-Saxons was misconceived they said since the 1970s the relationship between the Anglo-Saxons and the Britains has been increasingly reassessed and we would now tend to think of that relationship as much more complicated and nuanced if you like instead of continuous Warfare and hostility some Britains and some Anglo-Saxons lived peacefully side by side by the end of the 1990s no serious historian dared associate the Dark Ages with a real King Arthur again including OK himself he had the great sense rare among myth Hunters to accept that he was probably wrong I'm not aware of my dad taking criticisms hard he always saw there was another argument he always had some doubts as to whether Arthur existed he he always was prepared to accept there were other signs to the argument despite his mistakes at Cadbury in 1973 OK became the first professor of archaeology at Glasgow University and excavated Dark Age Hill forts in Scotland with huge success ok's Legacy was not only furthering our understanding of Dark Age Britain but also the lasting impact he had on the archaeologists he T without a doubt all Cox's work encouraged an interest in Dark Age archaeology among a succeeding generation of archaeologists most of whom are active today Leslie was a great teacher a great academic and I think he deserves more recognition than probably he gets and I think in due course his his contributions will be fully recognized not least amongst the sort of the hundreds of um students that he trained and sent out into the archeological [Music] world you can't underestimate Les or cot's contribution to the world of archaeology this was a remarkable step change in the way the archaeology and the public interacted and it's a legacy that we're still living under as for South Cadbury the hill for Fort is now barely even signposted home just to cows and Walkers it's association with King Arthur once again buried deep beneath the ground and although he may not have found Camelot OK had discovered the Fortified remains of a great leader you certainly didn't find the Camelot of romance as you found it in the Middle Ages we did find that the hill had been a great fortified place at exactly the right time and we now know South cbury Hill Fort was one of Britain's largest and most significant ancient settlements occupied for 4,000 years from Neolithic times until the middle ages Leslie or Cox's excavation at South campy was in many ways a great success it found an outstandingly useful sequence of occupation from a British Hill Fort and where does that lead the legend of King Arthur was he just a myth after all I personally think that did exist that as a Ducks Borum he was a great military leader where he was when he was I can't be [Music] sure I think we can say that there was a real person he is called King of the Britains Every Nation needs its foundation myth and Britain's is the legend of King Arthur and Camelot a legend that lives [Music] on [Music]

Channel: Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries

Views: 186,115

Keywords: Ancient Artifacts, Ancient Legends, Archaeological Findings, Archaeologist, British Monarchy, Camelot, Camelot's Existence, Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries, Dark Age Britain, Dark Age Castle, Dark Age Explorations, Heritage Sites, Historical Narratives, King Arthur, Legendary Kingdoms, Medieval Archaeology, Medieval Kingdoms, Medieval Society, Medieval Warfare, Mythical Heroes, Somerset Castle

Id: AesBNO3RSWM

Length: 50min 55sec (3055 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 23 2024