It turns out that King Arthur's legendary round table was a lot more badass than you ever thought. It most likely seated 1,000 people, and was probably built on the ruins of an old Roman settlement.


New evidence suggests that King Arthur's castle was probably in Chester, a British walled city whose roots go back to an ancient Roman settlement. Below, you can see an artist's interpretation of what that Roman city would have looked like, hundreds of years before Arthur claimed it.


According to the Telegraph, which consulted a "Camelot historian":

Historians believe regional noblemen would have sat in the front row of a circular meeting place, with lower ranked subjects on stone benches grouped around the outside. They claim rather than Camelot being a purpose built castle, it would have been housed in a structure already built and left over by the Romans. Camelot historian Chris Gidlow said: "The first accounts of the Round Table show that it was nothing like a dining table but was a venue for upwards of 1,000 people at a time. "We know that one of Arthur's two main battles was fought at a town referred to as the City of Legions. There were only two places with this title. One was St Albans but the location of the other has remained a mystery." The recent discovery of an amphitheatre with an execution stone and wooden memorial to Christian martyrs, has led researchers to conclude that the other location is Chester. Mr Gidlow said: "In the 6th Century, a monk named Gildas, who wrote the earliest account of Arthur's life, referred to both the City of Legions and to a martyr's shrine within it. That is the clincher. The discovery of the shrine within the amphitheatre means that Chester was the site of Arthur's court and his legendary Round Table."

That's great, but we still want to find the sword in the stone.

via Telegraph