Body Under British Parking Lot May Be King Richard III
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[QUOTE][B]For centuries, William Shakespeare seemed to have the last word. His Richard III glowered and leered from the stage, a monster in human form and a character so repugnant "that dogs bark at me as I halt by them." In Shakespeare's famous play, the hunchbacked king claws his way to the throne and methodically murders most of his immediate family—his wife, older brother, and two young nephews—until he suffers defeat and death on the battlefield at the hands of a young Tudor hero, Henry VII.[/B]
To shed new light on the long vilified king, a British scientific team has tracked down and excavated his reputed burial spot and exhumed skeletal remains that may well belong to the long-lost monarch. The team is conducting a CSI-style investigation of the body in hopes of conclusively identifying Richard III, a medieval king who ruled England for two brief years before perishing at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. Results on the investigation are expected in January.
But the much maligned monarch is not the only historical heavyweight to be exhumed. Since the 1980s, forensic experts have dug up the remains of many famous people—from [URL="http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/kids/history-kids/christopher-columbus-kids/"]Christopher Columbus (video)[/URL] and Simón
Bolívar to Jesse James, Marie Curie, Lee Harvey Oswald, Nicolae Ceausescu, and Bobby Fischer. Just last month, researchers in [URL="http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/map-machine#s=r&c=31.870268796589556, 35.214443206787095&z=12"]Ramallah (map)[/URL] disinterred the body of Yasser Arafat, hoping to new glean clues to his
death in 2004. Rumors long suggested that Israeli agents poisoned the Palestinian leader with a fatal dose of radioactive polonium-210.
Indeed, forensic experts have disinterred the legendary dead for a wide range of reasons—including to move their remains to grander tombs befitting their growing fame, collect DNA samples for legal cases, and obtain
data on the medical conditions that afflicted them. Such exhumations, says anatomist [URL="http://www.anatom.uzh.ch/research/researchgroupruhli_en.html"]Frank Rühli[/URL] at the Centre for Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, always raise delicate ethical issues. But in the case of
early historical figures, scientists can learn much that is of value to society. "Research on ancient samples provides enormous potential for understanding [questions concerning our] cultural heritage and the evolution
of disease," Rühli notes in an emailed response.
[B]
Franciscan Resting Place?[/B]
Archaeologists from the University of Leicester began actively searching for the burial place of Richard III this past August. According to historical accounts, Tudor troops carried Richard's battered corpse from the
Bosworth battlefield and displayed it in the nearby town of Leicester before local Franciscan fathers buried the body in their friary choir. With clues from historic maps, the archaeological team located foundations of
the now vanished friary beneath a modern parking lot, and during excavation, the team discovered the skeleton of an adult male interred under the choir floor—exactly where Richard III was reportedly buried.
The newly discovered skeleton has scoliosis, a curvature of the spine that may have resulted in a slightly lopsided appearance, and this may have inspired Shakespeare's exaggerated depiction of Richard as a
Quasimodo-like figure. Moreover, the body bears clear signs of battle trauma, including a fractured skull and a barbed metal arrowhead embedded in the vertebrae. And even the burial place points strongly to Richard.
English armies at the time simply left their dead on the field of battle, but someone carted this body off and interred it in a place of honor.
Taken together, these early clues, says [URL="http://leicester.academia.edu/JoAppleby"]Jo Appleby[/URL], the University of Leicester bioarchaeologist studying the remains, strongly suggest that the team has found the legendary king. Otherwise, she observes, "I think
we'd have a hard time explaining how a skeleton with those characteristics got buried there."
But much work remains to clinch the case. Geneticists are now comparing DNA sequences from the skeleton to those obtained from a modern-day Londoner, Michael Ibsen, who is believed to be a descendant of
Richard III's sister. In addition, forensic pathologists and medieval-weapons scholars are poring over signs of trauma on the skeleton to determine cause of death, while a radiocarbon-dating lab is helping to pin down
the date. And at the University of Dundee in Scotland, craniofacial identification expert [URL="http://www.lifesci.dundee.ac.uk/people/caroline-wilkinson"]Caroline Wilkinson[/URL] is now working on a reconstruction of the dead man's face for a possible match with historic portraits of
Richard III. All this, says [URL="http://www2.le.ac.uk/projects/greyfriars/images/Richard Buckley resize.jpg/view"]Richard Buckley[/URL], the lead archaeologist on the [URL="http://www2.le.ac.uk/projects/greyfriars"]project[/URL], "will help us put flesh on the bones, so to speak."
[B]
Digging Up History[/B]
Elsewhere, teams digging up the historic dead have contented themselves with more modest goals. In Texas, for example, forensic experts opened the grave of Lee Harvey Oswald in October 1981 to identify beyond
doubt the man who shot President John F. Kennedy. A British lawyer and author had claimed that a Soviet agent impersonated Oswald and assassinated the American president. To clarify the situation, the forensic
experts compared dental x-rays taken during Oswald's stint in the United States Marine Corps to a record they made of the body's teeth. The two matched well, prompting the team to announce publicly that "the
remains in the grave marked as Lee Harvey Oswald are indeed Lee Harvey Oswald."
More recently, in 2010, Iceland's supreme court ordered forensic experts to exhume the body of the late world chess champion Bobby Fischer from his grave in Iceland in order to obtain DNA samples to determine
whether Fischer was the father of one of the claimants to his estate. (The tests ruled this out.) And that same year, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez ordered forensic experts to open the casket of Simón Bolívar,
the renowned 19th century Venezuelan military leader who fought for the independence of Spanish America from colonial rule. Chavez believes that Bolívar died not from tuberculosis, as historians have long maintained,
but of arsenic poisoning, and has launched an[URL="http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/52/1/78.full"]investigation[/URL] into the cause of his death.
For some researchers, this recent spate of exhumations has raised a key question: Who should have a say in the decision to disinter or not? In the view of Guido Lombardi, a paleopathologist at [URL="http://www.upch.edu.pe/portal/"]Cayetano Heredia
University[/URL] in Lima, investigators should make every effort to consult descendants or family members before proceeding. "Although each case should be addressed individually," notes Lombardi by email. "I think the
surviving relatives of a historical figure should approve any studies first."
But tracking down the descendants of someone who died many centuries ago is no easy matter. Back in Leicester, research on the remains found beneath the friary floor is proceeding. If all goes according to plan, the
team hopes to announce the results sometime in January. And if the ancient remains prove to be those of Richard III, the city of Leicester could be in for a major royal event in 2013: The British government has
signalled its intention to inter the long-maligned king in Leicester Cathedral.
[/QUOTE]
I love Richard III
Lol I remember these guys. Our dear Chavez president asked them to examine the remains of Bolivar because he was suspicious he had died of intentional poisoning by his traitors instead of yellow fever (which is a well documented and proven fact). What a nutjob.
Well isn't this interesting
Oh hey I live there, I've actually been to the dig site. The organisers where really patronising and ended up pissing a lot of people off.
He died because he decided to do a cavalry charge with his personal bodyguard against Henry Tudor when he was on top of a hill and already had the strategic advantage, and also pissed off one of the most militarily powerful families in England.
He also failed to predict that Henry, who was Welsh, would land in the part of Wales that supported him for his invasion, and instead set up base in Nottingham.
Ricky was a bit silly.
No wonder he ended up beneath a car park.
Silly Richard. Silly.
I wonder how many people have taken a piss on the grave and not known it.
A parking space, a parking space, my kingdom for a parking space... Bloody dual-parkers.
Now that's badass
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