Jo Appleby1, Guy N Rutty2, Sarah V Hainsworth3, Robert C Woosnam-Savage4, Bruno Morgan5, Alison Brough2, Richard W Earp3, Claire Robinson5, Turi E King6, Mathew Morris7, Richard Buckley7. 1. School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK. Electronic address: ja253@le.ac.uk. 2. East Midlands Forensic Pathology Unit, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK. 3. Department of Engineering, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK. 4. Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds, UK. 5. Imaging Department, University Hospitals of Leicester, Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester, UK. 6. Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK. 7. School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Richard III was the last king of England to die in battle, but how he died is unknown. On Sept 4, 2012, a skeleton was excavated in Leicester that was identified as Richard. We investigated the trauma to the skeleton with modern forensic techniques, such as conventional CT and micro-CT scanning, to characterise the injuries and establish the probable cause of death. METHODS: We assessed age and sex through direct analysis of the skeleton and from CT images. All bones were examined under direct light and multi-spectral illumination. We then scanned the skeleton with whole-body post-mortem CT. We subsequently examined bones with identified injuries with micro-CT. We deemed that trauma was perimortem when we recorded no evidence of healing and when breakage characteristics were typical of fresh bone. We used previous data to identify the weapons responsible for the recorded injuries. FINDINGS: The skeleton was that of an adult man with a gracile build and severe scoliosis of the thoracic spine. Standard anthropological age estimation techniques based on dry bone analysis gave an age range between 20s and 30s. Standard post-mortem CT methods were used to assess rib end morphology, auricular surfaces, pubic symphyseal face, and cranial sutures, to produce a multifactorial narrower age range estimation of 30-34 years. We identified nine perimortem injuries to the skull and two to the postcranial skeleton. We identified no healed injuries. The injuries were consistent with those created by weapons from the later medieval period. We could not identify the specific order of the injuries, because they were all distinct, with no overlapping wounds. Three of the injuries-two to the inferior cranium and one to the pelvis-could have been fatal. INTERPRETATION: The wounds to the skull suggest that Richard was not wearing a helmet, although the absence of defensive wounds on his arms and hands suggests he was still otherwise armoured. Therefore, the potentially fatal pelvis injury was probably received post mortem, meaning that the most likely injuries to have caused his death are the two to the inferior cranium. FUNDING: The University of Leicester.
BACKGROUND: Richard III was the last king of England to die in battle, but how he died is unknown. On Sept 4, 2012, a skeleton was excavated in Leicester that was identified as Richard. We investigated the trauma to the skeleton with modern forensic techniques, such as conventional CT and micro-CT scanning, to characterise the injuries and establish the probable cause of death. METHODS: We assessed age and sex through direct analysis of the skeleton and from CT images. All bones were examined under direct light and multi-spectral illumination. We then scanned the skeleton with whole-body post-mortem CT. We subsequently examined bones with identified injuries with micro-CT. We deemed that trauma was perimortem when we recorded no evidence of healing and when breakage characteristics were typical of fresh bone. We used previous data to identify the weapons responsible for the recorded injuries. FINDINGS: The skeleton was that of an adult man with a gracile build and severe scoliosis of the thoracic spine. Standard anthropological age estimation techniques based on dry bone analysis gave an age range between 20s and 30s. Standard post-mortem CT methods were used to assess rib end morphology, auricular surfaces, pubic symphyseal face, and cranial sutures, to produce a multifactorial narrower age range estimation of 30-34 years. We identified nine perimortem injuries to the skull and two to the postcranial skeleton. We identified no healed injuries. The injuries were consistent with those created by weapons from the later medieval period. We could not identify the specific order of the injuries, because they were all distinct, with no overlapping wounds. Three of the injuries-two to the inferior cranium and one to the pelvis-could have been fatal. INTERPRETATION: The wounds to the skull suggest that Richard was not wearing a helmet, although the absence of defensive wounds on his arms and hands suggests he was still otherwise armoured. Therefore, the potentially fatal pelvis injury was probably received post mortem, meaning that the most likely injuries to have caused his death are the two to the inferior cranium. FUNDING: The University of Leicester.
Authors: Turi E King; Gloria Gonzalez Fortes; Patricia Balaresque; Mark G Thomas; David Balding; Pierpaolo Maisano Delser; Rita Neumann; Walther Parson; Michael Knapp; Susan Walsh; Laure Tonasso; John Holt; Manfred Kayser; Jo Appleby; Peter Forster; David Ekserdjian; Michael Hofreiter; Kevin Schürer Journal: Nat Commun Date: 2014-12-02 Impact factor: 14.919
Authors: Martin Haeusler; Cordula Haas; Sandra Lösch; Negahnaz Moghaddam; Igor M Villa; Susan Walsh; Manfred Kayser; Roger Seiler; Frank Ruehli; Manuel Janosa; Christina Papageorgopoulou Journal: PLoS One Date: 2016-12-28 Impact factor: 3.240