29
Jan

THE STIRLING WARRIOR

   Posted by: Dorothea Preis   in News

ArchaeologyObviously we are all waiting impatiently for the revelations of the press conference on 4 February 2013, which should tell us whether the human remains found in Leicester are indeed those of King Richard III.

During this time, last Sunday’s (27 Jan 2013) History Cold Case on SBS was of special interest.  It dealt with the skeleton of a man found in Stirling Castle in the 1990s.  It is thought that the remains are from a man who died in the 14th or 15th century and was buried in a former chapel of the castle.  The aim of the project was to find out, who the man might have been, how he died and why he was buried in the castle.

The tests carried out on the ‘Stirling Warrior’ are in many aspects similar to those carried out on the remains found in Leicester, including a reconstruction of the face and body of the knight.  When seeing his face, you can imagine coming across a man looking like this with the physique of possibly a rugby player.  The facial anthropologists, who made the facial reconstruction of the man in Scotland, Caroline Wilkinson of the University of Dundee, also made the reconstruction of the man found in Leicester.

They also carried out isotope tests, which revealed where the man had grown up.  And with the help of original records kept at the National Archives it was even possible to tentatively name him.  Of special interest was a barbed arrowhead found with the ‘Stirling Warrior’, as a similar arrowhead was found in Leicester as well.

Though the actual science aspect was possibly somewhat skimmed over in the interest of telling a story and lots of aerial shots of a car driving over a bridge, it is still an interesting insight into what can be done and what we can expect the press conference on 4 February to reveal.

Should you have missed the programme, you can still catch it on SBS On Demand, which is what I did on yesterday’s rained out afternoon.   You might also be interested in reading an article on the programme from BBC News.

Tags: , ,

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2013 at 0:01 and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a reply

Name (*)
Mail (will not be published) (*)
URI
Comment