The dating of the stone has been arrived at by two methods: first, the stone came from a securely stratified context in association with imported pottery of known types dating to the fifth/sixth centuries; second, forms of certain letters noted on the slate appear in
British inscribed stones from Scotland to Cornwall post-500 and are certainly known elsewhere from 6th century north Cornwall (part of the kingdom of
Dumnonia). At the top right-hand corner of the fragment is a deeply cut motif consisting (as visible) of a letter A and another incomplete character on either side of a large diagonal cross; the whole may represent a common
Christian symbol, a
Christogram—the
Greek alphabet letters
Alpha and
Omega flanking a large Greek letter
Chi (written like a Roman X), the initial of
Christos (Christ). Below this and to the left, but overlapping it slightly, is a smaller, more lightly incised inscription in
Latin, reading: PATERN[--] COLI AVI FICIT ARTOGNOU. This seems to have been repeated lower down and to the right; only the letters COL[.] and FICIT, on two lines, can be seen on the fragment. This repetition, the overlap with the Christogram and the shallow carving (scratching would be a more accurate description) all suggest that this was not a formal inscription but an example of graffiti. The inscription has been translated by the Celtic Inscribed Stones Project as "Artognou descendant of Patern[us] Colus made (this). Colus made (this)." The name Artognou means "Bear Knowing", from the
Brittonic root *
arto "bear" plus *
gnāwo- "to know", and is cognate with the
Old Breton name Arthnou and Welsh Arthneu. Also found in the sixth-century fort at Tintagel were numerous remains of expensive pottery, glasswork, and coins from
Visigothic Spain and the
Byzantine Empire (when excavated in the 1930s by
C. A. Ralegh Radford). ==Arthurian controversy==