Tintagel, Cornwall: the 1990 excavations

Abstract

A recent assessment of the evidence, old and new, for the nature and dates of the main sites within the Tintagel complex appeared first in Antiquity (Thomas 1988a). The paper ended by stating that ‘properly planned and rigidly controlled excavation … is not just desirable, but overdue’, and a second article (Thomas 1990) demonstrated that the large quantity of finds from the post-Roman occupation on Tintagel Island can now be related to structured commerce, linking Ireland and Atlantic Britain to several regions in the Mediterranean during the 5th and 6th centuries AD. During 1988/9 Tintagel Castle (that is, the Island and the mainland wards) as a Property in Care administered by English Heritage moved up to 7th place in the table of visitor-numbers, with a total of 140,000 and a combined admissionsplus-retail income of £162,000 (source: E.H. Marketing 1989). However, since it is abundantly clear that the archaeological importance of the whole site-complex must outrank the commercial status of the Castle as a PIC, an independent Tintagel Research Committee has been formed. It held a first one-day meeting at Tintagel and Truro in April 1990, under the chairmanship of Professor Malcolm Todd (University of Exeter). The Committee operates under a combined aegis of the Duchy of Cornwall (the owner, since 1337, of the Castle), Royal Institution of Cornwall, Cornwall County Council and the University of Exeter, and its membership is principally academic.

The context of Early Medieval barrows in western Europe

“…Another group of burial mounds dated to the 5th and early 6th centuries has been identified in western Britain and Scotland. Recent excavations of a part of the cemetery at Tintagel in Cornwall found evidence for an early 6th-century date for Mound C (Morris et al 1990). This and other barrows (at Hayle in west Cornwall and on Lundy in the Bristol Channel; cJ Morris et al 1990) are described as 'a distinctive sub-class of the wider "special grave" phenomenon' which 'reflect an imitation of Christian funerary practice in 5thcentury Gaul if not also further afield' (Morris et a].…”