The Excavation of King Arthur's Stone
Archeologists are on a mission discover the true origin of King Arthur's Stone.
Recent attention has been drawn to a historic location in Herefordshire, England known as Arthur’s Stone as archeologists begin to excavate the 5,000-year-old monument named after the legendary King Arthur himself.
The megalith structure is located atop a mound of earth and features a massive capstone held up by several smaller stones standing vertically. The vertical stones seem to almost levitate the more than twenty-five-ton capstone as it is suspended completely off the ground. The flat capstone also displays a fracture along the middle that looks to be due to an extrinsic force placed on the stone after the structure was erected. Legends say that the break in the stone occurred when King Arthur slayed a giant that then fell onto the massive stone causing it to break, others say that Arthur visited the stone frequently claiming that two indentations on top of the stone is where he would kneel to pray. However, these claims are only rumored to be speculation.
The reason Arthur’s Stone has resurfaced in recent headlines is because excavations have begun to reveal what lies beneath the mound of earth the stones were placed on. Researchers have concluded that Arthur’s Stone is a marker for an ancient tomb, more specifically a “dolmen” which is defined as a tomb located beneath a megalithic structure with a large flat stone set upon smaller upright stones. These dolmens are found primarily in France and Britain and can be dated as far back as 2500 BC. The excavation is being led by an archeology professor from the University of Manchester named Julian Thomas. The Real McCoy will keep you updated on the findings that emerge from this delicate project.
-Mike McCoy