DNA tests have just confirmed that remains found buried underneath a parking lot in England are those of King Richard III.
King Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in central England in 1485 and his bones ended up in a Franciscan friary known as Greyfriars, located in the centre of Leicester. A team from the city's university began excavating the site last month and said they had discovered a skeleton with wounds apparently sustained in combat, which they believed might be that of the last English king to die in battle. Richard's two-year reign was the subject of one of William Shakespeare's most celebrated plays, which portrayed him as an evil, ugly hunchback, and which helped cement the public perception of him.
Now it would seem that at least some of that legend may be true, after archaeologists unearthed a fully intact skeleton of the medieval king which has a deformed spine. The skeleton was an adult male, who appeared fit and strong, but with spinal abnormalities that pointed to the fact that he had severe scoliosis, a form of spinal curvature. This would have made his right shoulder appear higher than his left, and in less enlightened times would almost certainly have been cause for him being nicknamed a "hunchback".
Richard III ruled England between 1483 and 1485, during the decades-long tussle over the throne known as the Wars of the Roses.
