Medieval monks used King Arthur’s grave as an attraction to raise money

The site of King Arthur and Guinevere's grave. The grave was brought into the Abbey just a few years after the place burned down and the monks were desperate for money to rebuild. (credit: Tom Ordelman)

Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset, England is the legendary resting place of King Arthur and Guinevere, and for centuries people have visited to see the grave of the mythical fifth century king of the Britons and his bride. But the reality behind the Abbey's claim to fame had little to do with early monarchy. It was mostly about economics.

Archaeology magazine's Jason Urbanus reports on new findings from University of Reading archaeologist Roberta Gilchrist, who heads up the Glastonbury Archaeological Archive Project, an intensive reexamination of 75 years worth of excavations and discoveries from Glastonbury Abbey, many of which have been stored for decades without any scientific analysis. Gilchrist and her colleagues have found evidence that occupation of the Glastobury site may indeed date back to the purported year of Arthur's reign in the fifth century, but not due to any mystical connection with the king.

We know for certain that Glastonbury was a thriving community in the seventh century, where Saxon villagers created large furnaces to melt down and recycle Roman glass. Gilchrist's project has confirmed that the glassworks predated the Abbey, possibly by centuries, and was one of the largest glass production facilities in England at the time.

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