Head of state: Experts ready to unveil battle-scarred skull as Richard III's
A skull and skeleton found last September under Greyfriars car park in Leicester, 13 miles from the battlefield, has been investigated by experts who will reveal their findings
This battle-scarred skull is set to be revealed at 10am today as the head of King Richard III – found buried under a council car park.
The photograph was released by archaeologists on the eve of a historic announcement about the the 15th Century monarch who died in 1485’s Battle of Bosworth Field.
A skull and skeleton found last September under Greyfriars car park in Leicester, 13 miles from the battlefield, has been investigated by experts who will reveal their findings in front of more than 100 journalists from around the world.
Scientists were banned from talking about the results in advance, but Prof Lin Foxhall, head of archaeology at the University of Leicester, hinted that they are “very excited”.
Records say that King Richard – immortalised by Shakespeare as a hunchback who died after uttering the line “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!” – was buried under the choir of Leicester’s long-demolished Greyfriars church, now the site of a car park used by social workers.
Prof Foxhall said: “If it is Richard III we would know an awful lot about his death and burial. We would have hard, hard evidence to compare against historical accounts.”
She was optimistic there were enough pieces of the puzzle, including DNA tests, to reach a “meaningful conclusion”.
The skeleton, which has a curved spine, was uncovered after screenwriter Philippa Langley helped to raise money for a dig.
She went to the site when researching a play about the king and got “goosebumps”.
The body had been buried in neither a shroud nor a coffin, which is unusual for a medieval king.
The skull was analysed by the university’s Dr Jo Appleby, who said: “To determine whether this individual is Richard III we have built up a biological profile of its characteristics.
“We have also carefully examined the skeleton for traces of a violent death.”
Richard III, the last English king to die in battle, was painted after his death as evil and deformed and he was reputed to have murdered his young nephews, the Princes in the Tower, to secure his right to the throne.
Centuries later his name was used for a rather unpleasant example of Cockney rhyming slang.
A documentary chronicling the dig for his remains is on Channel 4 at 9pm tonight.
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