King Arthur’s Hall Was Created Thousands Of Years Before The Mythical King Existed, Making It Older Than We Thought
A historic site in southwest England associated with King Arthur is not from the medieval period, as experts had long thought. It actually dates back 4,000 years earlier to the Neolithic, also known as the New Stone Age.
The new finding challenges the idea that the structure was related to King Arthur, who would have lived in the 5th or 6th centuries A.D., as it was created thousands of years before the mythical king was said to have existed.
A team of researchers carried out a survey of the rectangular structure on the Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, which has been referred to as King Arthur’s Hall.
The structure is made of earth and rock, consisting of 56 standing stones. Some of the stones are leaning, lying flat on the ground, or partially buried. It measures about 69 by 160 feet.
It is a protected site, and Historic England, a government agency, listed it as an early medieval animal pen from around 1000 A.D. However, the standing stones caused experts to question if the structure was actually much older.
“Given that the monument is now 4,000 years older than most people thought, we now need to consider the monument within the context of Bodmin Moor’s prehistoric landscape,” said Tim Kinnaird, a geochronologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
The research team used a technique called optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) to date the structure to the Neolithic period, meaning that it is around 5,500 years old, which is 4,000 years earlier than previously thought. It’s even older than the most ancient parts of Stonehenge.
OSL can determine when certain minerals in the sediment were last exposed to sunlight. The OSL results were combined with other dating techniques, like radiocarbon dating of buried pollen and insect eggs.
The researchers found that the buried soil at the monument was disturbed at the time of construction, which provided the opportunity to date it.
Helen Hotson – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only – pictured above is King Arthur’s Hall on Bodmin Moor
Other prehistoric structures, including “tor enclosures,” or standing stones, and “long barrows,” or burial mounds, were also found on Bodmin Moor, indicating that a Neolithic community had been active there.
King Arthur’s Hall is a rather solitary structure on the moor. In numerous stories, the moor has long served as the setting of Arthur’s final Battle of Camlann.
According to medieval Welsh texts, Arthur and his knights fought against the forces of Mordred in the 6th century at Camlann, which is thought to be the present-day Cornish town of Camelford on the edge of the Bodmin Moor.
Legend has it that Mordred, who was either Arthur’s nephew or illegitimate son, was killed during the battle. Arthur was fatally injured and took a magical boat to the mystical island of Avalon.
Multiple ancient sites around the moor are linked to King Arthur. In the 16th century, it was said that the king frequented King Arthur’s Hall.
However, the results of the study show that the structure existed way before mentions of King Arthur began to appear. So, it is unclear whether Arthur ever stepped foot on the site at all.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
More About:News
Read This Next
