Further thoughts on King Arthur legend

THE response to my letters to the Western Mail – regarding the question of whether the King Arthur legend could be based on fact has, in my opinion, been rather limited and disappointing.

The main stumbling block seems to have been that there was no indigenous (written) language; before, or during, the period: 400CE -600CE. However, a fact that seems to have been overlooked is that there was another language (albeit a foreign language) which might have had a significant

impact on ancient British and Irish communication.

That language was Aramaic (that had both oral and written form). It was the language of the Phoenicians, and was understood and spoken by the peoples of the coastal regions of the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Atlantic coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, France and southern Britain.

The Phoenicians were an ancient people: they were master mariners, master boat-builders, master mercantile traders. They had traded with ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. It is possible that they traded with the ancient Britons from about 500 BCE.

The trade with Britain and Ireland was in metals – tin, copper, lead and gold. There was probably human trafficking. Towards the end of the Punic Wars (between Rome and the Phoenicians, from 265 BCE to 146 BCE) many Phoenicians fled to Ireland (and probably Britain).

Circa 595 CE, Pope Gregory the Great sent a certain monk, called Augustine, on a mission to Britain and Ireland – to lead an army of Roman-Christian zealots, to convert the pagans (and the indigenous Christians) of those two countries to the Roman version of the Christian religion. One of the reasons that Augustine was chosen was because he could speak Aramaic (Augustine was brought up in North Africa, where Aramaic was frequently spoken).

The ancient Phoenicians identified themselves with a banner/ flag, depicting a large red serpent (a dragon) – remind you of anything? and a serpent (a snake) coiled around a staff. The latter symbol/ emblem is now used as the emblem/ symbol of the medical profession. However, in ancient times it may have alluded to an ancient sect we now call Druids.

These Druids were often considered learned, wise, healers, and psychopathic killers. The latter attribute being a reference to their, alleged, practice of dismembering corpses, and hanging the bits and pieces of human anatomy on nearby trees and bushes.

However, I am of the opinion that they (the Druids) were protoanatomist/pathologist – trying to understand how the human body worked.

Perhaps research into ancient Phoenician history (writing) might unearth facts about our ancient history.

We might, for example, discover the equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls; or, perhaps, King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, in the toxic nuclear mud from the Hinkley Point nuclear power stations (in Somerset) – a large freshwater lake existed close by in Arthur’s time. Brian Hayes Bassaleg