Two islands portrayed off the coast of Wales on a map from the 13th century may represent the remnants of the long-lost kingdom of Cantre’r Gwaelod, providing proof of a “Welsh Atlantis.”
Now roughly a thousand years ago, stories have been recounted about Cantre’r Gwaelod, a region that has since submerged under Cardigan Bay.
One island lies offshore between Aberystwyth and Aberdyfi, while the other is farther north near Barmouth, Gwynedd, providing probable geographic evidence for the lost land.
David Willis, the Jesus Professor of Celtic at the University of Oxford, and Simon Haslett, an honorary professor of physical geography at Swansea University, presented the evidence of the islands on a medieval map.
Haslett and his companions discovered both islands to be a fourth the size of Anglesey while searching for the lost islands in Cardigan Bay that were originally mentioned in the mid-13th century.
Haslett speculated that the medieval Gough Map, the earliest full map of the British Isles still in existence, dates from approximately 1280 and shows the location of the “Welsh Atlantis.”
The two islands are clearly identified, and Haslett told the BBC that they could support reports from the time when a lost country was recorded in the Black Book of Carmarthen (1250).
The Bodleian Library at Oxford University houses the map.
Professor Haslett and Willis offered their best guesses as to how the islands may have arisen, vanished, and then reappeared—and how they ended up in local legend.
Based on Roman cartographer Ptolemy’s coordinates, Haslett hypothesised that the coastline was about 13 km (8 mi) west of where it is today, and that local legends described crossing lands that are now divided by the sea due to the ice age’s rising sea levels by walking.
However, he went on to say that tales like Cantre’r Gwaelod were more likely alluding to sea floods and erosion brought on by storms or tsunamis that forced coastal populations to leave.
From the time of Ptolemy through the construction of Harlech Castle during the Norman era, the seascape had undergone a total transformation, according to Haslett.
The fortress at Harlech, which was constructed to have a strategic advantage on the shoreline, suddenly found itself mostly landlocked, according to later maps, which also indicate that the islands had vanished.
Additionally, it is thought that erosion would have caused stones to be dislodged, creating sarns, which were monumental stone buildings that were crucial to the survival of the mythology.
Welsh folklore expert Dr. Juliette Wood said that although she had personally witnessed the sarns and found them to be credible, the tales of the lost city had only recently returned to popularity in the 18th century.
She said that there are parallel stories of a “Atlantis” across Europe and that the islands do not support this tradition; rather, they are only a coincidence.
Within our lifetimes, Prof. Haslett said, some of the first climate change refugees in Britain may emerge from Cardigan Bay since his research on the shifting terrain is still underway.