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Fragments of a hand-written medieval manuscript telling the story of Merlin the Magician from the legend of Camelot have been translated into English. The text tells of battles between King Arthur and King Claudas, as well as the romance between Merlin and Viviane — sometimes known as 'the Lady of Lake'. The seven pieces of parchment date back some 770 years, and were discovered in 2019 among the University of Bristol’s Special Collections Library by researchers trawling though the ancient tomes.... ...'The Suite Vulgate du Merlin was written in about 1220–1225, so this puts the Bristol manuscript within a generation...

The Car Dyke is an eighty mile artificial water channel, thought to have been constructed by the Romans from the first century AD... The Dyke runs along the western edge of the fens from the River Cam near Cambridge all the way to the River Witham, just south of Lincoln. Many stretches are protected as a scheduled ancient monument... William Stukeley... came up with the idea that Car Dyke was a canal... to supply the Roman Armies of the north with grain and food from Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire with drainage as a secondary function, a view which still perpetuates until...

Roman Britons after 410The ‘end of Roman Britain’ is a myth. Roman culture survived right through the Anglo-Saxon period. Martin Henig explainsThe 'story' of Roman Britain, as told to generations of schoolchildren, is a very simple one - AD 43, the Roman legions march in; AD 410, they march out again. Barbarity beforehand, barbarity afterwards, civilisation in between. In an earlier issue of this magazine (BA, September 1998) I suggested that the Roman 'conquest' of AD 43 was not all that it seemed to be, and that Britain's southern rulers - if not those in the north - were Romanised...

When Anglo-Saxons first arrived in Britain 1,600 years ago, they created an apartheid-like society that oppressed the native Britons and wiped out almost all of the British gene pool, according to a new study. By treating Britons like slaves and imposing strict rules, the small band of Anglo-Saxons -- who had come from what is now Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands -- quickly dominated the country, leaving a legacy of Germanic genes and the English language, both of which still dominate Britain today. The new theory helps explain historical, archaeological, and genetic evidence that until now had seemed contradictory, including...

Scientists say they have discovered big genetic differences between the English and Welsh, reinforcing the idea that the "true" Britons were pushed to the fringes by a large-scale Anglo-Saxon invasion. Researchers at University College London found the genes of a sample of English men were almost identical to those of people in an area of the Netherlands where the Anglo-Saxons are thought to have originated. But there were clear differences between the genetic make-up of English and Welsh subjects studied. The researchers concluded that the most likely explanation for this was a large-scale Anglo-Saxon invasion, which wiped out most of...

Explorations in Arthurian History The figure of Arthur begins as a war hero, the praises of whom are sung in war poems by the Celts and the Welsh. Y Gododdin celebrates one particularly brave warrior, then says he "was no Arthur." The Triads are full of wonderful, courageous things Arthur did. The most important early source for Arthur's deeds is Historia Brittonum, written by the monk Nennius in the 9th century. Nennius calls Arthur dux bellorum and tells us of 12 great battles Arthur fought. Although Nennius tells us the location of each battle, those locations are hard to come...

Human remains dug up from an ancient grave in Oxfordshire add to a growing body of evidence that Britain's fifth-century transition from Roman to Anglo-Saxon was cultural rather than bloody. The traditional historical narrative is one of brutal conquest, with invaders from the North wiping out and replacing the pre-existing population. But a new study, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, hints at a more peaceful process. Dr Andrew Millard, from Durham University, is one of the study's authors. 'The main controversy over the years has centred on how many Anglo-Saxons came across the North Sea,' he says. 'Was...

Archaeologists have found what they have described as a "breathtaking engineering project" in Lincolnshire. Almost 60 miles of medieval canals, possibly built by monks to ferry stone, have been identified in the Fens. Although the canals were up to 40ft wide they have filled up with silt and are now only visible from the air. Experts said the network of waterways represented an achievement not matched until the Industrial Revolution 300 years later. Viking raiders Martin Redding, of the Witham Valley Archaeology Research Committee, discovered the canals using aerial photographs. "They have been completely infilled by later deposits that have...

The new information places the construction of the dyke within the shadowy period that began with the formal withdrawal of the Roman administration (AD 410) and ended with the absorption of the area into Mercia. The report concludes: 'The dyke should therefore be regarded as being contemporary with that other great fifth-century linear earthwork, the Wiltshire Wansdyke, rather than Offa's Dyke, and should be considered as an achievement of the post-Roman kingdom of the northern Cornovii, rather than the work of seventh- or eighth-century Mercia.'

For more than 1,200 years, nothing had disturbed it. But in just a few hours, a stretch of Offa’s Dyke – one of the most important ancient monuments in Britain – was flattened. Police and Cadw, the heritage arm of the Welsh Government, are investigating allegations that a group of travellers destroyed part of Offa's Dyke. Above, the section that was dug away It is believed King Offa of Mercia built it between 757 and 796 to mark the division between Mercia and Wales and protect his land from invasion The 8th century monument, a linear earthwork which consists of...

SPACE AGE LASERS REVEAL OFFA'S DYKE MISSING LINK BY JANET HUGHES J.HUGHES@BEPP.CO.UK 08:00 - 01 June 2007 It has remained hidden for centuries but space-age technology has stripped away layers of history to discover what excited archaeologists believe could be a missing section of Offa's Dyke. Aerial laser technology, which allows the experts to see what is hidden below the trees and the undergrowth, has discovered a long strip of earthworks in the Forest of Dean. And archaeologists believe they may have finally found a missing 250-metre stretch of the Dyke built by King Offa between 757 to 796 AD...

It was thought to have built by King Offa in the 8th century as border between England and Wales But even though it has been part of the British landscape for centuries, the ancient Offa's Dyke may have to be renamed, after archaeologists discovered it could have been completed 200 years before the great Anglo Saxon leader was born. Experts used radiocarbon dating on the 177-mile dyke and revealed it could have been constructed as early as the 4th century... The group behind the project said it is a 'tremendously exciting discovery' which challenges the accepted history of the ancient...