It’s good to see that the news about the discovery in Leicester of a skeleton which might indeed be the remains of Richard III (subject to DNA testing) are getting quite a bit of exposure in the Australian media.  Our branch received a few requests for radio interviews and so far we found the interviewers interested in hearing our side of the story.

However, readers who live in the Sydney area, might have seen yesterday’s article in the Sydney Morning Herald with the headline ”Hunchback skeleton may be good fit for a king”.  A friend phoned me to talk to me about a similar article in the Australian (which I don’t read), so the story about the ”hunchback king” seems to have done the rounds.

Wednesday’s press release from the University of Leicester explicitly stated that the man, whose remains they had found, was not a hunchback.  He suffered from scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine, which would be hardly noticeable on a clothed person.  Above all it is very well possible for someone with scoliosis to be athletic, which a medieval soldier definitely had be, and Richard was an acknowledged good soldier.  I read that Usain Bolt has scoliosis – hardly the misshapen cripple of Shakespeare’s play.

Well, to cut a long story short, I was pretty annoyed with the story in the SMH.  Sufficiently annoyed to write a letter to set the record straight.  And I am glad that my letter was accepted for publication.  You can read it on the letters’ page of today’s paper or on the digital version here (you have to scroll down a bit).

No, I never thought Richard was a hunchback and if this skeleton is indeed his (and I think that there is a very good chance that it is), then it proves that he was not a hunchback.

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