Tintagel is the headland on the north Cornish coast. Here, as proven through archaeological excavations, are the remains of a castle. It was at Tintagel that Arthur is said to have been conceived.

The evidence found includes Eastern Mediterranean pottery used for luxury goods such as wine and is datable to around the fifth or sixth centuries AD. This proves that the household was fairly wealthy.

As Lacy et al (1997) describes:

"That implies nothing about Gorlois or Ygerna, but it does make it likely that Geoffrey knew in some way of Tintagel’s importance and located Arthur’s beginnings in a spot deemed worthy of him" (Page 48)

Again, therefore, we find that there are some silimarities between the textual evidence and the archaeological evidence. Of course, as stated in the quotation above, Geoffrey of Monmouth could easily have interwoven his fiction with truth, using actual places as a basis for his stories. This is not unlike the stories of Sherlock Holmes. We know that Holmes was based in London, a real place but that he was ficticious. The story of Arthur does, indeed, resonate with that of Holmes. Holmes is a literary figure as many would say Arthur is but, as with Arthur, Holmes has taken on a life of his own and a certain reality surrounds his name. The problem with Arthur is, we have no proof that he did not exist whereas, with Holmes, we know him to be a creation of the author Arthur Conan Doyle. Perhaps, the two famous figures have more in common than we first realise. Perhaps, Doyle based his character on a real figure as, it now seems, Geoffrey based his Arthur on Riothamus, a documented historical figure.

 Of course, this idea is of little use to this investigation but it serves to give a more modern day example of what a possible explanation of the Arthur story could be.

In 1998, the 'Arthur Stone' was found. The inscriptions on it included the name

Artognov which, some believe, could prove a vital archaeological find that could

Prove Arthur's link to the castle of Tintagel. There has, however, been no real

Link made to prove that Arthur ever lived at Tintagel. To read more about this

Other archaeological evidence