Zoom Lecture. Professor Ken Dark: Tintagel in the Global System of Late Antiquity

The fifth- to seventh-century AD settlement at Tintagel Head is well-known for having the largest quantity of imported material of this date from any British or Irish site. This lecture will explore the implications of this unique situation on three inter-connected levels of analysis. First, in terms of the site itself, elucidated by excavations and archaeological surveys from those by Radford in the 1930s to the important work undertaken in the previous two decades. Second, in its immediate hinterland, as this is being illuminated by the Tintagel Hinterland Project. Third, the context of the site and of south-west Britain as a whole in the global system of Late Antiquity - a very wide-ranging network of international contacts with enabled goods, people and culture to flow surprisingly easily and rapidly between apparently unconnected and distant locations. Together, these three scales of analysis can contribute to a new understanding the place of Tintagel both in the British kingdoms of the south-west and in the wider fifth- and sixth-century world.

Professor Ken Dark (University of Cambridge)  is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, the Royal Historical Society and Royal Anthropological Institute, and an elected Member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. He has written over 100 academic publications, including 16 books, most recentlyTyrants and Traders. Tintagel, Arthur and the Lost Kings(Bloomsbury 2026), reflecting his longstanding interest in the archaeology and history of immediately post-Roman Western Britain, and his particular fascination with the archaeology of Tintagel.

Photo by Allan Henderson