Rare 1,500-year-old brooch found close to 'King Arthur' castle
By
cg_graham | Posted: August 14, 2016
Archaeologists have stumbled across a "rare and significant" piece of jewellery close to a North Cornwall site linked to King Arthur.
The Romano-British brooch was found in a field at St Mabyn, near Wadebridge - less than a mile from a hill fort which Welsh writers once suggested might have been Arthur's Camelot.
The discovery begs the question as to whether the brooch might once have belonged to Arthur's queen, Guinevere.
The hill fort is today known as Castle Killibury, and although it has itself been the subject of some archaeological exploration the site has for centuries been ploughed. It has therefore yielded little of interest.
The brooch was found in a meadow known as Chapelfield, where developers are now seeking planning permission to build 14 houses.
The piece of jewellery is made of a copper alloy and the archaeologists think it dates from the 5th or 6th centuries – around the time a real King Arthur might have lived.
Although many sites claim to be associated with Arthur, what makes the Castle Killibury hill fort of potential significance is that the connection was first suggested by
Welsh writers. Usually claims are made to serve more parochial interests.
The brooch is the first evidence to suggest that the St Mabyn area was home to the wealthy or powerful 1,500 years ago.
The artefact is currently undergoing recording and conservation at the Royal Cornwall Museum.
The owners of the brooch, who also own the field where it was found, live in Malaysia.
But the publicly-available archaeological report attached to Cornwall Council's planning documents says: "The brooch is a rare and significant find, suggestive of a reasonably 'well-healed'
[sic] Romano-British farmstead settlement."
The archaeologists were surprised by the discovery, as they had been expecting only medieval finds.
The brooch, and other fragments of imported pottery, and slate game pieces, demonstrate the area was active and important nearly 1,000 years earlier.
"It would seem most likely that the Romano-British activity was associated with a small scale, possibly extended family farming unit of moderately comfortable means.
"This is suggested by the unusual brooch find and the imported fine ware pottery, including a piece of Samian ware from Gaul," says the report.
The limited excavations at nearby Castle Killibury, sometimes known as" Kelly Rounds," have also found fragments of imported Mediterranean pottery, indicating that the site was also used in the 5th or 6th centuries.
The fort is a banked and ditched defensive site, associated with other, smaller earthworks nearby.
Some Arthurian scholars claim that the 11th century Welsh tale of Culhwch and Olwen – thought to be the very first literary reference to a legendary King Arthur – place his headquarters at "Celliwig in Cornwall".
They suggest that the similarity of the name, and the fact that it is a hill fort from the right period in history, place the site at Castle Killibury. Other scholars dispute this, and say the Culhwch and Olwen story places Arthur's headquarters in Wales.
The St Mabyn brooch was found in May and is described in a report written last month. A few weeks ago, archaeologists commissioned by English Heritage found evidence of an important Romano-British castle at Tintagel, long celebrated by poets as King Arthur's birthplace.
cornishguardian.co.uk/rare-1-500-year-old-jewellery-found-in-north-cornwall-village-close-to-king-arthur-castle/story-29613136-detail/story.html
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