Unfortunately last night's show doesn't seem to have been uploaded on Youtube yet (I really do want to have a look at this crazy lady with the chills!) but found these interesting videos instead, explaining the skeletal and DNA findings



And the geneaological findings

Ahhh Philippa Langley on CNN, and good grief the woman is now writing a movie on Dicky, The Man....

That opening shot should be on the caption thread.

"Will someone get this mad woman away from me. I've been dead over 500 years and she's still after my body".

And the academics begin to weigh in, this should be fun to watch. I rather like this quote from Mary Beard though

“Gt fun & a mystery solved that we’ve found Richard 3. But does it
have any HISTORICAL significance? (Uni of Leics overpromoting itself?))”

http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/02/2013/richard-iiis-scarred-skeleton-becomes-a-battlefield-for-academics

It seems quite ironic for a Classicist such as Mary Beard to be somewhat snootily demanding 'historical significance' in all this. If she's board by the whole tiresome business then maybe she could get her students to translate the following as part of their next homework:

'Interim Ricardi corpus cuncto nudatum vestitu, ac dorso equi impositum, capite & brachiis ac tibiis utrinque pendentibus, Lecestriam ad coenobium Franciscanorum deportatur, spectaculum mehercule miserabile, sed hominis vita dignum, eoq loci sine ullo funeris honore, biduo post terra humatur.'

(From Polydore Vergil's Historiae Anglicae, Liber XXV)

Here's Mary's fuller response and, for what it's worth (will the person at the back who said "bugger all", be quiet) I largely agree with her.

http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2013/02/richard-of-york-gave-battle-in-vain.html

This project has been undertaken not as an enquiry into the past with the aim of increasing knowledge in general but as a privately sponsored treasure hunt. Might this usher in another age of the well heeled financing and so dictating the direction of archaeological research according to their personal interests? In fact, a return to the past of the discipline?

Actually, I suspect that the university didn't think for a minute that they would find him but that they had fortuitously acquired funding for the excavation of a building important to local history and offering interesting insights into medieval Leicester and the effects of the dissolution etc. When the body with the wonky spine turned up, I'll bet they were torn between the pound signs popping up and the media profile it offered and the realisation that instead of a rigorous, professional open area excavation carried out according to normal methodology, they were going to have to chase the corpse in that dreadful narrow little trench and then blow all that lovely cash on masses of expensive science.

Didn't Buckley open the programme by saying something like "This isn't what archaeologists do"?

Thanks for that link ferval. An interesting article and some great replies there too.

Despite Mary's protestations to the contrary, however, there does seem to be more than an element of sour-grapes on display and possibly even sheer curmudgeonliness. The fact is that I can't recall such a high degree of global fascination in an historical/academic event since the radiocarbon dating of the Turin Shroud in 1988. And that event effectively exposed a myth. Apparently that's 'what archaeologists do'.

In the case of Richard III, however, we see both history and myth confirmed. The historical account of his burial is confirmed and the myth of the 'bunch back' or 'crook-back' is also confirmed. It seems that this is just too much to take for some parties - and at both ends of the spectrum.

For my own part, for example, I had believed (and was happy to go through life believing) that it was pretty much received orthodox wisdom that Richard's bones had been dug up and scattered during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Yet steadfast historical research by John Ashdown-Hill combined with (slightly less than) excellent osteoarchaeology by Jo Appleby has completely changed all that. This is real history.

Well done the University of Leicester. Good on 'em.

You're probably right that, in some archaeological quarters, there is an element of sour grapes but maybe more in terms of the possible career changing and financially positive effects of such a high profile, media friendly discovery than in any academic acclaim that might accrue from it. Channel 4 has dumped Time Team so perhaps...... The university must be rubbing their hands at all the coverage.

In the end though, what has really been learned? What has changed in our understanding of the 15th c. events? Did Richard's spinal condition or the disposal of his remains affect anything very much? I'm no historian so please, enlighten me.

Dead king hunting looks like being the next big thing, Alfred, Henry I, etc. I'm off to look for James IV in my back garden.

I don't quite understand the cynicism round this event, which seems interesting and quite important. We have here only heard the basic information, not the discussion round it and certainly have no concept of rivalries round British universities. (I do suspect the British tend to be cynical about almost everything, though. Makes life hard for anyone in the public eye.)

The information about Richard's scoliosis but nothing of a withered arm must surely put to rest ideas based on Shakespeare about his deformities at least, if not other aspects of his character as shown in the play.

I understand from a working archaelogist's point of view that seeing all this money spent on a single person rather than a more rounded view of the past is rather galling, but it's certainly interesting to the public. Even in faraway NZ this has made the top 10 most popular stories of our news site (we are guided a little here by what they put in front of us, but even so it must have been recognised that this would be interesting to the average joe). Though archaeology and its finds is surprisingly popular generally anyway. But from funding points of view it probably doesn't hurt to be able to point to public interest.

When I came home this afternoon my husband had changed the screensaver and asked if I recognised it. "It's relevant." I thought it might be Waitangi - it had a sign I could read and some trees mostly. But it turned out to be (the old) Bosworth Field. He had spent an hour trying to find the photo.

Thanks for that link ferval, I've bookmarked it so I can read all the comments properly when I have more time.

I must say that I agree with Mary whole heartedly though, I'm not an academic and have absolutely no agenda to promote and yet Mary has described exactly my feeling on watching the press conference. This sentence just about sums it up for me

(as a member of the public, I want not just a story, but a validated story).

At least Mary has answered the question I posed above, there has been absolutely no peer review before rushing to the press. In allowing Channel 4 to dictate procedure here, Leicester is rather leaving itself wide open for attack on this one. There is a reason for the checks and balances in historic, archaeological and scientific research, and this rather sets a dangerous precedent in adding to the over-load of misinformation that is already out there.

Does anyone remember this? way back on friday the 8 jan 2010

Message 1.

Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 8th January 2010

Welcome one and all to the Richard III annexe if you would like to drop in.. Apparently those of us who are wind-bags have worn poor Elizabeth of York into an early demise... In keeping with points that have been made recently, perhaps we should accept that this annexe is likely to be a bit of a mix of common room, social bar, and lumber room.

Perhaps we will track down the Princes buried under the floor-boards.

I only have a few minutes - on a borrowed computer. I cannot tell you how unbelievably frustrating it is not being able to take part in this discussion.

I am wretched.

Hope to resume normal posting soon.

PS I'm glad Vizzer said, "Well done, Leicester!"

So the Mt DNA tests may not be as conslusive as we have been lead to believe,

Mitochondrial DNA is
passed down the maternal line and has 16,000 base pairs in total.
Typically, you might expect to get 50 to 150 fragments from a 500-year-old skeleton, says Ian Barnes
at Royal Holloway, University of London, who was not involved
in the research. "You'd want to get sequences from lots of those
fragments," he says. "There's a possibility of mitochondrial mutations
arising in the line from Richard III."
"It's intriguing to be
sure," says Mark Thomas at
University College London. It
is right that they used mitochondrial DNA based on the maternal line, he
says, since genealogical evidence for the paternal lineage cannot be
trusted.
But mitochondrial DNA is not especially good for
pinpointing identity. "I could have the same mitochondrial DNA as
Richard III and not be related to him," says Thomas.
The
researchers used the two living descendents to "triangulate" the DNA
results. The evidence will rest on whether Ibsen and his cousin have
sufficiently rare mtDNA to make it unlikely that they both match the
dead king by chance.
They must also not be too closely related.
If Richard III's living descendants shared a common female ancestor even
150 years ago, their DNA could still be too close for the pair to count
as distinct samples, says Thomas.
We'll have to wait for the results to be published to know for sure, says Barnes.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2013/02/leicester-body-richard-iii.html

What I don't know is, someone will I'm sure tell me, could the could the common female ancestor of the three tested (if there was one) not be much further back than Ricky boy's mother and thus the car park geyser then be a distant cousin?

As the Goons used to say, it's all rather confusing really!
However, the DNA match and the circumstantial evidence together certainly present a strong case.

It IS very confusing AA, I agree. And on the surface it does present a strong case, but without a peer review we've only heard one side of the story. This is what I find so very frustrating, we now have to wait again until the full data is released and independent academics have had a chance to go through it.

Ferval, I also read today that because the Normans in Britain were of a very small gene pool that any number of people could have given a positive DNA test, but that would not necessarily mean an automatic relationship to RIII.

My head is spinning with it all!

I als wonder if comeone else had the skull model if another and very different likeness to that portriat might emerge. Oh we of little faith.

Yes I wondered that too P. Without in any way casting aspertions on the team who did the reconstruction they did know who it was thought to be and obviously had seen the portraits.
It would be interesting if it was done by someone who had no idea of the origin to see if the result was similar.
As for that idiot woman who gushed he did not look like a tyrant - well neither did Hitler who just looked like a fool. If the artist had given Tricky Dicky a set of glaring eyes and a few well defined creases and a downturned mouth, all perfectly possible as it would be part of the '"artistic impression" element, he could easily have looked quite unpleasant.

Now why didn't I think of this? http://www.cafepress.co.uk/+richard-iii+teddy_bears

Oh, how disappointing - I was expecting a teddy in a Richard III outfit!

What about this one then? Anatomically correct?

That one probably would have Blue Rabbit as his emblem rather than a boar....



"A horse! A Horse! My Burger is a horse .........."

Deleted.

Screens can cost a lot to replace if it's a laptop you're talking about - so much is integrated in the motherboard and replacing them can cost as much as a new machine.

If you're buying a new one don't fall for the sales crap right now going round on behalf of the Google Cloud Operating System machine. You may as well invest in a tinfoil hat with antenna.

Got two minutes left - thanks, nordmann. I am being very wary. The PC World mob were dreadful.
Got to go!!

Richard mania, is that what this is? Well possibly after reading about that Philippa L, they are not far wrong

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130206-richardiii-king-england-archeology-bones-parking-lot/

And an amusing piece from the Scotsman

http://www.scotsman.com/news/fiona-mccade-some-royal-skeletons-are-best-left-hidden-1-2777611

Finally it is up. The doc Richard III, The King in the Carpark, for those of us not in the UK and are wondering what all the talk is about.

Thanks for posting that, ID. Without having seen it, it was a bit like having been to the circus without seeing the clowns.

Another programme detailing the archaeology and the DNA investigation - given that the programme makers had access to all the personnel and facilities involved throughout - would now be very welcome. I would particularly like to see the site report on the layout of Grey Friars with an analysis of the evidence that led them to deduce that they were in the chapel or choir where dignitaries were interred, given that they appear on the basis of this programme to have found only one set of remains.

The philological evidence that led them to the car park and that which promoted the burial theory over the one in which the body had been dumped in the river would also make a fascinating programme too.

Fair play to Philippa Langley if it was indeed her determination that made the dig possible. The programme does her no favours, but then it also manages to diminish one's faith in the senior archaeologists who supervised the excavation, reducing their input to rather glib observations in the main. Jo Appleby on the other hand comes across as intelligent and dependable an interpolator of the data, largely because of the camera's obsession with the skeleton and therefore her, as osteologist, getting more time to speak. The only non-presenter to speak more than Jo was poor Philippa, who from the outset was an observer and therefore had little to say except in reaction. These she obediently provided and the film makers predictably relayed to us, but as TV it was purely at the voyeuristic end of the documentary spectrum, not the informative end alas.

I'm looking forward to the adult version, in other words.

Quote :

I would particularly like to see the site report on the layout of Grey Friars

Surely there was a GPR survey before they started digging? However I expect that wouldn't make as good a story as Phillipa's sensations, much like all the desk based stuff that must have gone on before.

There were other remains discovered: a woman and I think some other bones but clearly not considered interesting enough for prime time.

I wonder where they will publish, I hope it comes out before I lose free journal access.

Well according to the little said about it in the programme it seems they hadn't a notion whether the bones were inside or outside of the building until much more excavation had taken place. There is no mention of geophysical work at all, conclusive or otherwise, before or after the opening of the first trench.

I'm not sure Philippa's own preparatory work wouldn't make an interesting programme. She apparently spent almost four years sourcing and collating the philological and documentary evidences pin-pointing the likely burial site. That is something I would like to see or read about.

It was certainly disappointing how little science was in it, a puff piece really. In the begining of the show they said that they were pulling finds out by the hour and I was waiting and waiting to hear what they were but aside from the rusty nail there was nery a mention, little on any mention of other skeleton/s.

Thank heavens for Jo Appleby, she did seem a little annoyed with Philippa and her silly antics at times though!