A FASCINATING account of the history and making of the Britain we know today has emerged in a BBC documentary, featuring a five-week archaeological dig at Tintagel Castle.

The documentary, King Arthur’s Britain, aired on Sunday, September 16, presented by Professor Alice Roberts, and displayed the findings from a five-week excavation undertaken on a site at Tintagel Castle, which has since brought to light the importance of this site to recognising the changes taking place in post-Roman Europe.

Between 400AD and 600AD, Britain was thrown into the Dark Ages, a period of austerity and violence between the British and the Anglo-Saxons, following around 400 years of Roman rule.

This is also known to many as the period led by the legendary King Arthur, who was supposedly conceived at Tintagel after Uther Pendragon summoned the wizard Merlin to assist him into the bed chambers of his lover, Lady Igraine, married to Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall.

This account was penned to paper by Geoffrey of Monmouth who told the tale of the legendary leader in his historical scripts, almost 600 years after Arthur was living in Britain.

The documentary sees Alice glance over the 12th century script, which details the histories of the kings of Britain, and reads passages that first connect King Arthur to Tintagel, at his birth.

After the Anglo-Saxons swarmed in on Britain from the North Sea, Arthur led the resistance against the invaders, where the word ‘Caliburno’ — the root of the well-known ‘Excalibur’ — was first found among the writings.

With the Roman rule now at an end, the aristocracy began to leave Britain and, viewers learned, with no Roman money, the economy collapsed, leaving Brits to ‘fend for themselves’.

There is also very little evidence of the people who lived during the Dark Ages — for around 200 years, records of living people stopped, meaning today there are only two to three from the British Isles having writing fragments of their lives.

Further on in the programme, viewers saw the vast excavation taking place at Tintagel Castle with curator at English Heritage, Win Scutt, explaining that the ancient settlements found during the digs would have housed hundreds of people, revealing a much grander settlement than the ones found elsewhere in Britain dating from this period.

Alice said the excavation would be bringing ‘Tintagel out of the Dark Ages and back to life’.

Jackie Nowakowski, principal archaeologist at the site, revealed that the settlement was buried over 1,400 years ago, but archaeologists now know more about the people who once lived at Tintagel.

Findings included fine tablewear such as dinner plates and storage vessels that would have once contained olive oil and wine.

Viewers learned that the findings at Tintagel are the largest quantity of pottery found from this period than anywhere else in Britain, suggesting the people of this site lived a very different life from those living across the rest of the country. It is evident that 5th century Britain was a divided country.

With the excavation underway, over 500 litres of soil was then filtered to reveal a huge variety of shards of pottery from Tintagel.

Pottery expert Dr Maria Duggan said that many shards of pottery from the site were pots and dinner plates and amphora, originating from locations such as Turkey and the Bordeaux region in France. This has revealed that people in the Dark Ages were moving across Europe and trading with Tintagel.

With the first 3D model of the Tintagel site having been created and shown to viewers during the documentary, it was also revealed that a location nearby Tintagel had a resource that was extremely valuable to people all over Europe and the Mediterranean.

Alice took viewers to what would now appear to be a simple natural gorge close to Tintagel Castle, which was once an ancient tin mine — making Cornwall’s wealth at the time.

With the gorge being 120 feet deep, 130 feet wide and 900 feet long, this was just one of three sources of tin in Europe and people would have travelled from all over the Mediterranean to retrieve it.

Towards the end of the programme, the famous stone that the Post has previously reported on made its appearance on the last day of the excavation. With the words ‘Tito’ and ‘Budic’, the latter being of Welsh, Briton and Cornish origin, the inscriptions found on the stone have suggested that those living in Tintagel were not only wealthy, but literate — the scratches on the stone suggesting someone was practising their writing, possibly for a Christian monument.

The documentary revealed that Tintagel was at the centre of an international trading network, and although there is no evidence to confirm that King Arthur was real, the site at which he was supposedly conceived, has helped shape Britain and the people we are today.

Tintagel Castle is now closed until spring, when a new footbridge will be revealed to create easy access for visitors.

To find out more about Tintagel Castle and the archaeological digs at the site, visit www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/tintagel-castle