(This
section on how we made the discovery will be a part of the introduction
in the paper book, though it is posted as a separate chapter in this
ebook.)
Perhaps the best introduction is simply to write a story about how we made the seeming discovery.
I guess my interest in Arthurian started mainly from the movies (like excalibur) and fiction books and popular culture, combined with my history and studies interests, and some nonfiction historical books (including Gooderich's, Godwin's, and a couple of others i didn't record and don't remember), and also my Bambrough family history.
Originally like most everyone else i also started out with the mental impression that Arthur was in the north-west half of England/Britain not in the "Anglo-Saxon" south-east half/quarter. Early Arthurnet posts of mine bear witness to me searching in south-east Wales, north-east Devon/Somerset, Mercia, and Wessex, including sites such as Bredon Hill, Calleva/Silchester Round Temple, Bardon Hill in Leicester.
One of the tactics i tried was looking for Arthur's ship burial site or Camlan & Avalon. I once considered Sutton Hoo but dismissed it as too far east and as being "Saxon" and dating too late (which 3 views we are all mentally impressed with by orthodox history). Later on when i was again looking for Arthur's ship burial site i again considered Sutton Hoo and this time i looked up Sutton Hoo rather than just dismissing it as too far east and too late. In a book give to me by my father i was reading about Sutton Hoo and i saw lots of similarities with Arthur(ian) and it seemed pretty quantity enough that it started my Arthurian Sutton Hoo theory. Our theory was helped by a friend mentioning Aurelius Uriscinus in the Hoxne hoard not many miles from Sutton Hoo. We found quite a number of similarities between the Hoxne hoard and Arthurian. (Around about this time when Karen Han asked us something about theSatffordshire Hoard we also found possible similarities between the Staffordshire Hoard and Arthurian as well, though in a different part of Britain. Alan Hassell also wrote that both Sutton Hoo and the Staffordshire Hoard have British associations.) We are no longer sure that Hoxne and/or SH is Arthur's or Arthurian, but this thesis lead to our Saxon Shore discovery.
In checking for any other matches evidence supporting Sutton Hoo thesis we looked all around Suffolk and Norfolk and Essex for matches with other Arthurian places including the 9 battle sites of the HB. At this time Camulodunum/Colchester was a candidate for Camelot, and Scole a candidate for Shallot. We found some candidates for some of Arthur's 9 battle sites in the East Anglia area. It was at this time that we first noticed that some of the 9 HB battle sites names and numbers were similar to some of the 9 ND SS forts names, also noticing that both were sets of 9. However, the first seeming matches of the HB battle site with the 9 ND sites were only some battle sites and they did not seem to match in any order and so we did not think there was any match and didn't consider it any more.
Sometime later we had two pieces of evidence come at the same time which made us look again at the possibility that the 9 ND SS forts set may match the 9 HB battle sites of Arthur. Judy Shoaf in a reply to someones post posted a link to Garianonnum in the Ravenna cosmography, and we saw that the name was very similar to Glein rather than Guinnion. A friend Graham/Graeme told us that some other person/people had matched Dubglas with the Blackwater in Essex. Both these together combined with our previous noticed matches made us see that we now had the first 3 battle sites matching all in order, plus the 6th site Legionis matchng succeeding SS site Richborough, and Guinnion was seen to match Dover after considering "well if Garianonum matches Glein then what site does Guinnion match?" So now we had 5 of the 1st 6 sites all matching in order (except for minor cross-switch match of 5th & 6th sites between the chronological/strategical HB & geographical ND/SS). In addition we then saw that Agned might match Anderida, and Badon might match Adurni, and when we sat back and looked at them on map we were amazined that almost all of the 9 HB sites matched he SS sites all in order, and we saw the strategic situation and thought/felt "wow this is one of the greatest military campaigns leaders in history". (Linnuis we where sure was in the Othona/Ludanbyrg or London area, but we were not able to "prove" the correct name match seemingly is until this last year.) From that moment on we never really ever doubted the match was surely right because the probability/chances/odds of 9 sites matching all in order is not very high. Someone said we found it because we "looked where no one else looked".
At some stage we found that Celidon may match the Kit's Coty area agreeing with the order of preceding & succeeding matching sites. (The extra possible Coldrum connection came later.) Tribruit was the last site to be identified. At first we were not sure where it was and one candidate was Twyford/Yalding. But later we found that it does sensibly seem to match Lemanis afterall, since the meaning of the name Tribruit and the battle sites nature/description does very well match with the Lympne/Romney area's geography then. Though we were uncertain as too the correct name match until this last year when we found that Rutupian shore seems to be a good match for it.
Charles Gunther Evans in one reply to us said there was not anymuch enough on the meanings of the names? We looked into this and we found alot more amazing matches evidences making our thesis even more sure. Unfortunately though we later found that most everyone including Charles disregarded the meanings matches (and numbers/order match(es)) and only cared about exact names matches.
Further discoveries were made after Edwin Hustwit suggested to us "how did Nennius know of the ND?" This lead us to finding that other early lists like the Pa Gur battles and 11 Consuls list and 12 Monasteries list also seem to match the same 9 HB & ND/SS sites. We had previously partially seen possible match of the 9 PG sites with the 9 HB & ND/SS site from an artcile about the Pa Gur sites in Hunt's 'From Glein to Camlann'. Another amazing possible discovery was that at least 3 of the 5 places in the 571 entry of ASC & Ethelwerd seem to match or seem to be analogous with at least 3 of the 9 HB & ND/SS sites in Kent. Liganburh ~ city of legion (Richborough), "Bensington" ~ Bassas (Reculver), Egonesham/Ignesham ~ Guinnion (Dover). Scholars have hitherto believed that the 571 sites were in "Buckinghamshire/Bedfordshire" but we see some evidences that they may rather be in Kent (or else the 571 sites may be analogous memory copies of the Kent battle sites).
We also somewhat accidentally/causally found that some of the Wonders of Britain also seem to match some of the same 9 SS sites. Some have asserted that Nennius was not in Anglo-Saxon territory, and/or was in the west or Wales. However, we have not seen anymuch actual evidence for this. An alleged interpolation in Asser says local traditions attested to Nennius and others having been at "Oxford". In Arthurian tradition "Oxford" might be Reculver/Bassas by the Wantsum-Stour.
From Arthurian lists in our friend Graham's site we discovered some other possible matches of some other lists with the battle sites too. In one list of 7, the 1st Grynn is possibly similar to our 1st site Glein/Gariannonum, and 5th Gwrdnei cats eyes to our 5th/6th Guinnion/Dover (where there were 2 lighthouses).
Sometime later we also found that the Gwallawg battle list also seems to correspond with the same 9 HB/PG/ND sites.
Many harsh criticisms on forums made us go through Jackson's article/paper on Arthur's battles a number of times and we addressed most of the points raised in his piece. The more we looked into criticisms and looked for any further matches evidences the more we found even greater matches evidences, rather than being weakened.
The theory that Badon 1 is Guinnion & Dover/Braddon was seen later after the preceeding.
We were not sure where Camlan &/or Avalon was but we had candidates in our SS area including Sutton Hoo, Reculver (Levitating Altar), Clausentum/Bitterne, Alderney.
