Monks ‘discovered’ Arthur and Guinevere’s graves in 1193, just when funds were needed for a new abbey.
Roman roads
A comprehensive road system underpinned the exceptional degree of mobility and trade that characterised the Roman Empire, and much of the modern road system in Europe and the Mediterranean region is built on top of Roman constructions. Roman roads are also among the earliest relics of antiquity to be studied and mapped.
Despite this, the authors of a paper published in Scientific Data in November 2025 (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-06140-z) estimate that we only know the precise location of 2.7% of the Roman road network, while the routes of 90% are conjectural and 7.3% entirely hypothetical. The authors calculate that their own analysis has doubled the number of known routes, resulting in the most detailed and comprehensive open digital dataset of roads in the entire Roman Empire yet published.
