When you buy through nexus on our site , we may realize an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it works .
A British cave dwelling has been distinguish as the refuge for an exiled Anglo - Saxon king , according to archaeologist .
Anchor Church Caves , locate by the River Trent in a secluded part of the countryside in fundamental England , was long considered to be an 18th - 100 " folly " — an extravagant building made solely for decoration or as a prank .
Until recently, archaeologists thought the cave dated to the 18th century. Their estimate was nearly 1000 years off the mark.
But a new study has let on that the cave house is the real deal . The 1,200 - year - sometime social organisation was built during the troubled life of the Northumbrian king Eardwulf , who was hounded from his throne to live as a solitudinarian , and later became a saint .
relate : Family necktie : 8 sincerely dysfunctional majestic families
Local legend tell Eardwulf , or St. Hardulph as he was later known , lived inside the cave dwelling after he was depone and exiled for cryptic reason in A.D. 806 . A sherd from a 16th - century book put forward that Eardwulf '' has a cell in a cliff a little from the Trent , '' and the banished top executive was buried in A.D. 830 at a locating just 5 nautical mile ( 8 km ) from the cave .
Eardwulf lived in the cave along with his disciples, researchers believe
Edmund Simons , an archaeologist at the Royal Agricultural University in England and the principal investigator of the project , is convince that Eardwulf lived in the caves under the watchful middle of his enemies .
" The architectural law of similarity with Saxon buildings , and the documented affiliation with Hardulph / Eardwulf , make a convincing event that these cave were construct , or enlarged , to put up the exiled king , " Simonssaid in a command .
Eardwulf lived and rule during a sentence of persistent political unbalance in mediaeval England . During the 7th , eighth and ninth centuries , seven key kingdoms and over 200 kings fascinate , murdered and warred against each other in a fervent , constant scuffle for supremacy .
Eardwulf lived in the cave along with his disciples, researchers believe
Eardwulf took the throne in A.D. 796 after the killing of his two immediate predecessor , and ruled Northumbria for only 10 years before he was chased from mightiness ( possibly , agree to some scholars , by his own Word ) to drop his remaining years in expat in the rival kingdom of Mercia .
With all of this civil strife , hiding in a cave with the remainder of one ’s disciples was far from the most abnormal estimation Eardwulf could have come up with , Simons said .
" It was not unusual for deposed or retire royalty to take up a spiritual life during this stop , gaining sanctity and in some cases canonisation , " he say . " Living in a cave as a hermit would have been one way this could have been achieved . "
— Images : The largest stash of gold coin discovered in Israel
— 19 of the world ’s sometime pic reveal a rare side of history
— The 25 most mysterious archaeological finds on Earth
The researchers reconstruct the original plan of the caves , which includes three rooms and an easterly confront chapel , using detailed measurements , a drone survey , and a careful study of the architectural feature of speech — which closely resemble other Saxon architecture . Despite having been overlook by historians until late , cave habitation may be " the only intact domestic buildings to have survived from the Saxon menstruum , " Simon sound out . The team has place over 20 other cave houses in west - central England that could date back as far as the fifth century .
The Anchor Church Caves were later modified in the eighteenth hundred , according to the squad , when it was write that the English patrician Sir Robert Burdett " had it fitted up so that he and his friend could dine within its cool and romantic cells , " allot to the researchers . Burdett total brickwork and window frames to the caves , as well as widening the openings so that well - dressed women could enter , the argument said .
" It is extraordinary that domestic building over 1,200 class older survive in apparent tidy sum , unrecognized by historians , antiquary and archaeologists " Mark Horton , a professor of archaeology at the Royal Agricultural University , who is leading digging of Viking and Anglo - Saxon remains at Repton , cheeseparing to the cave , said in the statement . " We are surefooted that other examples are still to be happen upon to give a unique perspective on Anglo - Saxon England . "
The investigator print their determination in the journalProceedings of the University of Bristol Speleological Society .
primitively published on Live Science .
