Dinas Emrys

Dinas Emrys is a rocky hillock near Beddgelert in Gwynedd, rising 76 m above the Glaslyn valley in Snowdonia. Excavations in 1910 and 1954-56 revealed occupation from the late Iron Age (1st-2nd century BC) through the Roman period to the early medieval era (5th-8th centuries AD). Imported Mediterranean pottery and iron smelting evidence date to the 5th century. Stone ramparts 2.5-3 m thick encircle the summit, with a 12th-century keep base attributed to the princes of Gwynedd. The site is famous in Welsh mythology as the place where the young prophet Ambrosius (later Merlin) revealed two fighting dragons beneath Vortigern's failed citadel, a legend central to the Welsh red dragon emblem.