Tintagel has a big part to play in Francis Pryor's video : "Britain AD - the Invasion That Never Was"
There now follows some transcription notes that may be of interest to my learned TME brethren.
@ 18:50 he starts on the "Dark Age" buildings on the Tintagel peninsula.
He says it's all Post-Roman, Pre-Norman.
Huge amounts of pottery shards, analysed as "Serpentine", coming from the Cyprus and Southern Turkey area. Used for transporting goods by sea from the Eastern Med, in the era 530-560. A vast trade network, based on Constantinople. Byzantian. Not Roman. Trading goods, and ideas.
But what was being traded for all these fancy foreign goodies?
Discovery in Erme Estuary, Devon in 1995 by divers. A "most unusual find" - tin ingots 99.9% pure. On the shore nearby, ancient hearths with more of these pottery shards (beach parties)
ref Neville Oldham, South West Marine Archaeology Group.
( See
http://www.marinearchaeology.org/ErmeEstuary.htm )
@ 33:30
Same kind of pottery shards found on Caldy Island, part of the early Monastic movement. Not Roman. Arrived from Eastern Med. An alternative to the Roman Christianity. "Dozens" of monasteries established in the Dark Ages according to Gildas (according to Pryor).
Gildas = one of scholars in touch with all of Europe.
Inscribed stones like found on Caldey also found scattered across Western Britain. Literate society.
Pryor starts talking to David Howlett, Medieval Latin @ Oxford
Seven liberal arts formed in Dark Ages
Mathematics = static number
Music = moving number
@39:00
David Howlett says Modern Europe was invented in Britain in the 6th Century
The Inscribed stones (found in Western Britain) looked like ropey odd Latin prose,
nobody realised it is verse with hidden meanings.
From St Tudclud, Penmachno:
Caravsivs hic iacit in hoc congeries lapidvm
= Caracsis here lies in a heap of stones.
But it you read it backwards
vm lapid es geri con hoc in iacit hic ivs avs car
Classical Latin, a line of hexameter verse with faultless metrical quantities
Encoding the name of the person that designed the inscription
Viola
Most holy wife of a Bishop.
( See Literate culture of `Dark Age' Britain :
http://archaeologyuk.org/ba/ba33/ba33feat.html )
@43:10
The Dark Age didn't exist in Britain. These people kept using a classical Latin because they did not speak a Romanese tongue. The Brits are the only people in Europe who did this. Britain did not collapse. Britain was the only place in Europe that prospered during the mythic Dark Age.
Resurrecting ancient trade links. The lights were turned up brighter.
Camelot was a real place, centre of a huge trade network and learning.
