Editing King Arthur's Round Table (section)

==Archaeology==
[[File:Mayburgh-1769.png|thumb|left|Mayburgh and King Arthur's Round Tables, 1769]]
Around 1664 [[William Dugdale]] sketched the remains, showing the two opposing entrances, and also showing that there were two [[standing stone]]s, one each side of the northwest entrance.<ref name="pastscape1"/> These stones had disappeared when [[William Stukeley]] saw the monument in 1725.<ref name="pastscape1"/> In 1891, C. W. Dymond produced a comprehensive record of the remains.<ref name="pastscape1"/><ref>Bersu, G. (1940). King Arthur's Round Table. Final report, including the excavations of 1939, with an appendix on the Little Round Table. ''Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 40, 169–206''. {{doi|10.5284/1062976}}</ref>

Excavations were undertaken in 1937 by [[R. G. Collingwood]] and continued in 1939 by [[Gerhard Bersu]].<ref name="pastscape1"/> The excavations showed that the ditch had been cleared out and reshaped and the entrance through it made narrower in modern times. Collingwood claimed to have identified a number of structures, represented by [[posthole]]s, and identified a "cremation trench" near the centre of the site. Bersu, however, contradicted most of Collingwood's findings, arguing that the posthole features were not of archaeological significance, and he found no evidence of cremation burning, although he accepted that there might be a disturbed grave.<ref name="pastscape1"/> However [[Grace Simpson]] (1998), the daughter of the excavator [[Frank Gerald Simpson|F.G. Simpson]], and Stephen Leach (2019) have queried Bersu's work and largely rehabilitated Collingwood as an excavator.<ref>Simpson, G (1998). ‘Collingwood's latest archaeology misinterpreted by Bersu and Richmond’, ''Collingwood Studies'', V, 109–19</ref><ref>Leach, S. (2019). King Arthur's Round Table Revisited: A Review Of Two Rival Interpretations Of A Henge Monument Near Penrith, In Cumbria. ''The Antiquaries Journal'', 99, 417–434. doi:10.1017/S0003581519000039</ref>

In 1988 a geophysical survey was conducted to examine the north segment and the southeast entrance, but the results were directly affected by the 18th–19th century landscaping.<ref name="pastscape1"/>