Our bronze age coronation rites seem to speak to a modern love of the sacred

‘Britain’s roots are fabulously ancient’: King Charles III during a ceremony presenting new standards and colours to the armed forces. Photograph: MD/Newspix International

Watching a coronation is the constitutional equivalent of visiting a zoo, and finding a Triceratops in one of the enclosures.

Charles III sits on the throne of the United Kingdom by virtue of his descent from two fabulously venerable lines of kings. The house of Wessex, which fashioned the united kingdom of England back in the 900s, traced its origins to the early 6th century; Cináed mac Ailpín, or Kenneth I, traditionally ranked as the first king of Scotland, stood in a line of succession to the no less ancient monarchy of the Picts. Countries that can boast a head of state based on criteria reaching back to such a distant age are vanishingly rare. Only Japan and the Vatican can really claim to outrank Britain in such stakes.