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Subscribe to RSSThe bones of King Richard III have been found in England. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.
Experts say DNA analysis supports their claim that the bones dug up last year under a parking lot in the English city of Leicester are the last mortal remains of England's King Richard III.
"It's the academic conclusion of the University of Leicester that beyond reasonable doubt the individual exhumed at Greyfriars in September 2012 is indeed Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England," Richard Buckley, the project's lead archaeologist, said during a Monday news briefing in Leicester.
The project used 21st-century forensic science to solve a 500-year-old mystery surrounding one of William Shakespeare's best-known villains. Shakespeare's play, "Richard III," made the king out to be a scheming monster who killed children to get to the English throne. The bard gave Richard III dramatic lines that are still evoked today, ranging from "the winter of our discontent" to "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"
In real life, Richard III's battlefield death in 1485 marked the end of England's Wars of the Roses, a decades-long conflict between the houses of York and Lancaster. Tradition held that he was buried in the choir of Leicester's Greyfriars Church, but the precise location of his remains was lost in the mists of time. Some even speculated that Richard's bones were thrown into the River Soar during Henry VIII's reign.
It was only in the past few years that archaeologists have been able to zero in on the location of the Greyfriars site again. Last year, a team led by the University of Leicester excavated a city parking lot and found a wealth of intriguing evidence — including a skeleton with a battle-scarred skull and a spine that was curved due to scoliosis. There was no evidence of a coffin, a shroud or clothing that was buried with the body.
All those clues suggested that the skeleton could have been that of the historical Richard III, but to firm up the connection, scientists put the bones through genetic tests, radiocarbon dating and more detailed osteological analysis.
"The skull was in good condition, although fragile, and was able to give us detailed information about this individual," University of Leicester archaeologist Jo Appleby reported Sunday in a news release. During Monday's news briefing, Appleby said experts identified 10 injuries to the bones, including eight wounds to the skull and "postmortem humiliation injuries." Such wounds are "highly consistent" with the accounts of Richard III's death, she said.
"Historical sources tell us that Richard's body was stripped," hacked and put on public display after the battle, Appleby noted.
The skeleton's relatively delicate structure was consistent with descriptions of Richard III's physical appearance, University of Leicester historian Lin Foxhall said.
University of Leicester
A photo shows the Greyfriars skeleton lying in the site where it was found.
University of Leicester
The Greyfriars skeleton is laid out for forensic analysis. Experts believe the foot bones were separated from the rest of the body after burial.
University of Leicester
The Greyfriars skull was found by researchers during a search for the remains of King Richard III.
Researchers say they've found the skeleton of King Richard III of England.
Buckley told journalists that the position of the hands suggested that they might have been bound together. Initially, the team reported that an arrowhead was found among the bones, but Buckley said a closer look determined that the object was a nail that was apparently mixed in with the remains.
Radiocarbon dating showed that "the individual could have died in 1485," Buckley said. Two tests yielded dates possibly ranging from 1455 to 1540.
The team's genetic analysis reinforced the link to Richard III: DNA was extracted from bone samples and compared with modern-day mitochondrial DNA from two direct descendants of Richard III's family, including an anonymous donor as well as Michael Ibsen, a Canadian-born cabinetmaker who is a 17th-generation descendant of Richard III's eldest sister, Anne of York.
"The DNA evidence points to these being the remains of Richard III," said Turi King, a geneticist at the University of Leicester. She said additional DNA tests were still in progress.
Genetic matches based on mitochondrial DNA aren't as clear-cut as, say, a paternity test — but a mismatch would have ruled out any family connection. Similar techniques were used to identify the remains of Czar Nicholas II and other members of Russia's royal family, who were killed in 1918 during the Russian Revolution.
A documentary about the Leicester project, "Richard III: The King in the Car Park," is to be aired by Britain's Channel 4 on Monday night. But this isn't the end of the story. For one thing, the results announced on Monday will have to go through review and publication in scientific journals. The announcement also could lead to a reassessment of Richard III's reign, which some historians say wasn't nearly as terrible as Shakespeare made it out to be.
"I think this could be the moment where Richard III's reputation actually turns," British historian Andrew Roberts told NBC News. "This could be the moment where we look at his achievements and the positive aspects of Richard III, and don't just see him as one of the old Dark Ages kings."
And then there's the matter of reburying the remains: Authorities said the skeleton would get a proper interment in Leicester Cathedral, not far from the parking lot where it was found. The cathedral's canon chancellor, David Monteith, said planning for an interment ceremony in 2014 has already begun, and he expressed the hope that after more than 500 years, Richard III "may come to rest in peace, and rise in glory."
More about the search for Richard III:
- PhotoBlog: Reconstruction reveals Richard III's face
- Skeleton was almost destroyed in 19th century
- Dispute erupts over skeleton's future resting place
- Hunt for king's grave turns up garden
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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And now for something completely different.
A man with three buttocks?
It`s great that they found the remains before they completed construction of the parking lot or people would still be wondering where his remains were and all the time he would be under a parking lot.Not a very noble final resting place for a king`s remains, under a parking lot.
Things don't change much - he was originally buried out back of the abbey, where they parked the horses - one parking lot pretty much the same as another, you get all the exhaust and drips.....
"A Horse A Horse my Kingdom for a Horse" I got him the bloody horse and I have been waiting five hundred years in this bloody car park where is my Kingdom.
What a downfall! From being king to being nothing but skeletal remains under a parking lot. Just shows how temporary everything in this life really is.
"What a downfall! From being king to being nothing but skeletal remains under a parking lot. Just shows how temporary everything in this life really is."
Now, c'mon. That's Hamlet. Stick with the correct play here. I do think that finding a King's skeleton under a modern parking lot is pretty pedestrian, however.
But don't forget Edward, The Black Prince's epitaph, loosely - As you are, I once was. As I am, you too will be.
Cousin Richard, good to see you again! You're looking well given your age and circumstances.
All very cool, finding an old skeleton beneath a car-park, and perhaps they are the long-lost (but maybe un-sought) mortal remains of Richard III - I would pretty much accept that the DNA link and coincident C-14 dating range make this a fair probability, and IF there are any contemporary records which attest to any sort of spinal deformity, all the better (respect to the Bard and all that, but he was writing after the fact, when the victors did indeed have time, opportunity, and motive to doctor the history, so...). But what does any of this have to do with changing in any way our understanding of who or what Richard is said to have been? How does this find make him either more or less glorious than he ever was?
I don't think that there is much doubt that he was at one time King of England, or that he met his end at or around Bosworth field back when, nor that his end was other than brutal, in the ways of war and the times (and attested to, in part, by the apparent wounds seen on this skeleton). But this skeleton can say nothing to change whether he did or did not have those princes smothered, whether he was good or bad at ruling, whether he created fair or unfair laws, or indeed whether he was loved, liked, hated or dispised by his subjects. So how does this add to or raise his glory, if any?
Sounds mighty like Soviet-era "Rehabilitation", to me! "Once thought a monster, but LOOK! We've now discovered the TRUTH! Behold! The REAL King has been found!" I hope that folks don't find this cause or substance for trying louder to change our current image of who or what the guy may have been. To do so on account of this skeleton really is to simply declare him "rehabilitated" and revise "history" because we want to and CAN, not because we know anything saliently different. Besides, I rather enjoyed Shakespeare's Richard III!
I don't think anyone is suggesting it adds to or raises his glory in any way. It is simply him. Other Kings of England are honored with appropriate burials whether they were good or bad. Even King John was buried at Worcester Cathedral by the shrine of his favourite saint.
We may find that five hundred years time when we come reassess Obama's presidency as written by the Repubican Party. We might find that he wasn't a Marxist Leninist Stalinest Socialist Communist Muslim Kenyan with links to the Nazi Party.
really ??? please explain to me where you get your info.
I watched Faux once. I am not proud of that fact but its true.
A parking lot. Imagine that.
Just think of how much overtime parking fees the city will be able to assess the estate for this.
There the fees, the penalties, the interest.................compounded hourly since the 1400's.............
the city only owns the ground which the parking lot lies upon not the underground beneathe it so the king was not in violation of any codes past or present for resting there but no surprise that the liberal nit-pickers would come in here to try and take some of of his family's hard-earned money and dump it into public redistriubtion campaigns for something so petty.
Hater, methinks flylow may have been somewhat kidding. You are a little quick on the knee-jerk political assumptions.
Jock, methinks hater may have been kidding too.
It's official. I was kidding.
But if that part about the city only owning the surface is true, that's going to throw a whole new twist into the basic bundle of rights that ought to go with fee simple title on land.
Anyway, send him a bill and he can have his secretary mark it paid by order of the King.
He was the KING, after all.
How could anyone have even walked with a backbone like that? It looks absolutely hideous and had to be excruciatingly painful.
Are they going to do a facial reconstruction?
It's a good assumption that they will, although I haven't heard confirmation of that.
Nice looking skull, very regal.
this and the saints and the lights last night whats next
@ Physicist-retired:
Re "The Dunning–Kruger effect" , I like the way Lord Bertrand Russell put it:
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
Great quote, Horace - from the man who gave us the Teapot.
Absolutely facinating! To think that Mr. Ibsen, a cabinet maker, and his brother and sister are the last in the line of the House of York, once the most powerful family in Great Britain. On the lighter side, all this has reminded me of Richard Dreyfus's swishy impression of him in The Goodbye Girl.
They would be the last in the line of the House of Lancaster, not York. Richard III was the last Plantagenet king, which was of the Lancastrian line.
No, Misscreant, Mary has it right. Richard was from the House of York (hence the first line of the play). The House of Lancaster was Henry 4, 5, and 6, descended from John of Gaunt. York was actually an inferior line from Edward III through patrilineal descent, but they had married into a superior line. And the House of Lancaster had usurped the throne anyway. Hence the Wars od the Roses.
Yes, she was. I realized my mistake too late. My old professors would be very embarrassed for me.
Scoliosis gives one a hunchback. However, it is a testimony to this man's fortitude that he rode and fought with broadswords while having a spine that undoubtedly gave him a terrible limp and constant pain. His goodness/badness ratio will probably be lost to history--we have our own media-manipulated beliefs about our leaders these days.
ALthough Shakespeare portrayed Richard as a both murdering his brother & a child murderer, there is no conclusive evidence that he did, indeed, murder Clarence or have the young princes murdered. Remember that Shakespeare was writing during Elizabethan times and wouldn't have been terribly popular with a Tudor monarch if he told the story sympathetically. Richard really had no reason to kill the princes as they had been declared illegitimate by the Church and thus were ineligible to take the throne. A far more likely scenario is that Henry the VII, the first Tudor king had them disposed of to solidify his very tenuous claims to the throne. In fact, there were several uprisings early in his reign led by supposed pretenders that claimed to be one or the other of the princes. The fact that Richard was basically murdered on the field at Bosworth and then buried without honors or markers makes this find all the more remarkable - he deserves to be interred with church rites after all this time. Give him back his honor and inter him with the respect due a monarch.
Shakespeare notwithstanding, Richard III is one of several English kings who richly deserved burial under a car park.
He still looks like a King !
R.I.P, Old King.
Is anybody else wondering what the heck the "deleted by commentator" comments could possibly be. I don't understand what about this story could warrant a post that could be deleted.
I would also love that Alan is chiming in an clarifying positions. Just remember that good will always triumph over evil, because what winner wants to say "I'm evil and I won" history is his story and as such history from this long ago should never be taken as actual fact, when there is no actual proof.
The posts deleted were advertising an auction website. The comments were deleted because they had no value and had nothing to do with this story on King Richard III.
It amazes me that so little is written that the War of the Roses was almost inevitable because of prodigiousness of King Edward III - an historically unheard number of legitimate surviving sons who themselves produced more sons. In short, too many heirs, too little land.
"prodgiousness" ?? Mean he was prolific??
I think Wm. is referring to the fact that Edward III outlived his son, Edward the Black Prince, so when Edward III died they had to start to look at siblings and their offspring for a ruler - naturally they all started fighting.
Probably lost his claim check --and had no cash and credit card maxed out--so,he killed himself.
Jk
Holy Scoliosis Batman, that wuz one twisted sista!
What are the chances of a forensic rebuilding of the face? Might be interesting to get a good look at the fellow as he was.
Well then.........now what?
They are still looking for Old King Coal. I bet they find him right next to Prince Albert in the Can.
it seems King Richard III got a huge jaw of a face. The picture of the king did not seem to indicate the huge jaw...