Archaeologists pinpoint the home of an 11th century king depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry

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Often referred to as the world’s most famous medieval artwork, the Bayeux Tapestry is both an intricate illustration of the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England in 1066 and a historical enigma. Several mysteries still surround the dazzling embroidery, including the identity of its maker, but new research may have found another piece of the puzzle.

The 68.3-meter-long (224-foot-long) tapestry depicts William, Duke of Normandy, and his army killing Harold Godwinson, or Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, at the Battle of Hastings. While the embroidery’s portrayal of Harold pulling an arrow out of his eye may be a matter of debate, a team of archaeologists says it has confirmed a different detail from Harold’s tapestry scenes: the location of his residence in Bosham, England.

The team used a combination of traditional and modern techniques to establish the site of the king’s palace, which appears twice in the artwork — once when Harold is feasting in an extravagant hall before setting sail to France and the second time on his return prior to the battle. The researchers reported their findings January 9 in The Antiquaries Journal.

“We often just think of (the Bayeux Tapestry) as a piece of artwork, but of course, it’s depicting events and places. And to be able to, with some certainty, locate one of those places from the tapestry on the ground in real life is really exciting,” said the study’s lead author Dr. Duncan Wright, a senior lecturer in medieval archaeology at Newcastle University in Newcastle, England.

Archaeological remains from this period are hard to come by, said study coauthor Oliver Creighton, a professor of archaeology at England’s University of Exeter. The houses, even for those of high status, were made of timber, and the wood would not have survived. Also, the Norman Conquest likely eradicated most evidence of its predecessors, Creighton added.

The discovery not only sheds light on the final Anglo-Saxon king, it also provides a rare window into a key turning point in history for England, researchers said.

Medieval toilet and other key clues

Bosham is named on the Bayeux Tapestry, but the exact location of Harold’s residence depicted on the embroidery has not been clear. Over the years, archaeologists had a hunch that a large house built in the 17th century, the focal point of the present-day village that exists there, sat on top of where the palace once stood.

To confirm this location, researchers used a range of methods, such as analysis of standing structures within the current house, ground-penetrating radar to scan and map any buried remains of the medieval palace, and a review of evidence from a 2006 excavation inside the house and the garden.

“People often think of archaeology as being all about digging, all about excavation,” Creighton said. “… But it’s a jigsaw puzzle. It uses lots and lots of different sources.”

The surveys found two previously unidentified medieval buildings within the house and garden, but a vital clue that helped to date the site and identify the palace was a latrine, or a toilet, discovered in the 2006 excavation. Researchers overlooked the feature at the time; it’s only in the past decade that archaeologists have begun to see a pattern of toilets being placed in elite residences during the Anglo-Saxon period, Wright said.

Another indicator was the site’s proximity to a church. Elite Anglo-Saxon residences were often built near churches, according to the study, and the site of Harold’s palace was next to an important Anglo-Saxon church in Bosham.

“These residences and churches together (around the year of 1000 ) are where the aristocracy start to kind of invest in their own kind of displays. They’re showing off to each other, really,” said Wright, who is the principal investigator of the Where Power Lies project, a systematic examination of power centers between the late Anglo-Saxon and Norman periods.

“In England, loads of these places then become manor houses or castles … but their origins and how they emerge is pretty poorly understood,” he added. “And so the main aim of the project was really trying to sort of characterize the archaeology of these really early phases of these places starting out and how they evolve.”

A house fit for a king

Harold’s palace, which was a moated, enclosed site featuring many ancillary buildings, such as stables, granaries, storehouses, kitchens and other accommodations found during the 2006 excavation, is one of seven sites that researchers have examined so far as part of the Where Power Lies effort, said Creighton, who is also the co-investigator of the project. But the Bosham site is particularly special for its connection to the Bayeux Tapestry.

“The Bayeux Tapestry is integral to the way everyone thinks of Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest. … But there is a huge amount the embroidery can tell us about the past beyond its representation of military and political events,” said Rory Naismith, a professor of early medieval English history at the University of Cambridge, who was not involved with the study.

“We can mine it for details about how people lived, including what their world looked like (such as Harold’s hall at Bosham). We can also use it as a way into how people understood and pictured the recent past, which helps us to grasp why this item was made in the first place,” Naismith said in an email.

“The paper permits something really rare and remarkable: to read about a place and see images of it in sources from the time, and to be able to pinpoint and reconstruct something of it now,” Naismith added. “This is precisely what brings the past to life. … It adds texture to the picture we have of Harold and the world he inhabited.”

Within the Bosham house, archaeologists discovered a few original features from medieval times, including a stone wall directly at the center of the house, wood timbers in the roof, and one of the stairwells, which appears to have been reused from an earlier building.

The study’s authors said they do not think these features are from Harold’s palace, but they hope to return sometime this year to perform wood dating to confirm their origins, Wright said. There are no photos of the exterior of the existing house available to the public out of respect for the privacy of the current owners, he added.

Harold’s Bosham palace was not his only home, as both before and after the Norman conquest the elite would often move between estates, but it was likely his favorite due to the large size and lavish features, Creighton said.

“This news is particularly exciting because it brings together different types of evidence — the wonderful tapestry, archaeology and medieval written sources,” said Dr. Caitlin Ellis, associate professor in medieval Nordic history at Norway’s University of Oslo, who was not involved with the study.

“This shows that there is still more to discover about this period by reassessing the evidence. The Bayeux Tapestry is a fascinating slice of history, both visual and textual,” she said in an email. “The Battle of Hastings and the resultant Norman Conquest is seen as a key turning point in English history and identity. It was a time of both change and continuity.”

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