I have been following the press conference at Leicester on Twitter and this report is based on their tweets.  You can also read them on the update from the University of Leicester.

The press conference revealed that two skeletons were found, one of them was female and thus obviously not Richard III.  The male skeleton was found in the choir area, where according to historical records Richard was buried.

This skeleton appears to have suffered significant peri-mortem trauma to the skull, which would be consistent with an injury received in battle, and a metal arrowhead was found between vertebrae of the upper back.   It was near the spine, but not actually embedded in bones.

The man, whose skeleton it is, had spinal abnormalities, but was not a hunchback.  It would be consistent with severe scoliosis, where the spine is curved from side to side [Wikipedia].

The next step is to try to extract DNA from the bones to match it to the DNA of the man, who is descended in the all female line from Richard’s sister.

Philippa Langley of the Richard III Society stated that the aim of the “project has always been about finding out about the real man, not the Tudor myth”.

The findings so far look extremely promising, but DNA analysis will give us the truth at last.  Truth is indeed the “Daughter of Time”.

Tags: Archaeology, Leicester, Leicester Greyfriars Dig, Richard III