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RICHARDIII
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RICHARDIII
Acar park in Leicester made
the news when it wasfound to
contain the graveofRichard III.
In Shopper 304 backin2 01 3,
Mike Bedford looked at the
technology thatwas used to
find and verify the remains of
England’slast Plantagenet king
78 JANUARY2021|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE395
espitethe success of the long-running
TV seriesTime Team,UKarchaeology
rarely hits the big time.Yet in August
2012, the world’s media descended on a
dig in acar park in Leicester city centre
to witness asurprisediscovery with
royalconnections. Fast-forward to
February 2013 and attention was again
focused on Leicester when it was revealed, during apress
conference at the University,thataskeleton recovered from
the council car park was in fact the remains of England’s last
Plantagenet monarch, King Richard III.
Public interest in this historic quest was no doubt fuelled by
the mystique that surrounds this monarch. Richard III was the
last English king to die in battle,and his death at the Battle of
Bosworth Field in 1485 marked the end of the Middle Ages.
Shakespeare’s portrayalofhim as awicked tyrant has also
generated controversy.InShakespeare’s day, when physical
afflictions were often seen as proofofmoral failings, the
supposedly hunchbacked Richard III was an easy target.
The fate of his remains was embellished, too. He was
originally buried in the choir of the friary church of Greyfriars in
Leicester,but according to some sources the body was dug up
following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, dragged through
the streets by ajeering mob and thrown intothe River Soar.
The story of the epic quest to discover the remains of
Richard III is certainly one forthe history books, but it was
also ajourneyofscientific discovery.Newsreports contained
passing references to technologies such as ground-penetrating
radar,DNA profiling and facial reconstruction. This was
enough to whet our appetites, but we were eager to delve
even deeper.Tobetter understand the technologies that
underpin modern archaeology,wespoke to the experts
involved in the hunt forRichard III.
FINDING GREYFRIARS
Recent interest in the search forRichard III dates back to 2009.
Initiated by Philippa Langleyofthe RichardIII Society,the quest
relied on Langley’s background research and her firmly held
conviction that Richard’s grave hadn’t been desecrated, as
folklore would have had us believe,and that his remains were
therefore still interred in Greyfriars. Yetthe Franciscan church
had been completely demolished in the 16th century and its
location lost in the mists of time.Even so,and despitethe very
real possibility that every last remnant of Greyfriars had been
obliterated after centuries of urban development, the first task
was to find the Franciscan friary.
The dead King Richard III is led off
the battlefield in are-enactment
of the Battle of Bosworth Field
Reproduced with kind permission of Benjamin Tebbutt
