Confirmed: The Bones of Richard III (1452–1485) Found Under a UK Parking Lot

Last Sep­tem­ber, British archae­ol­o­gists made a pret­ty star­tling dis­cov­ery. They found, they believed, the bones of Richard III (1452–1485) in a makeshift grave under a park­ing lot in the city of Leices­ter. It sound­ed like a pret­ty igno­min­ious but karmi­cal­ly jus­ti­fied rest­ing place for the tyran­ni­cal medieval king por­trayed so famous­ly by William Shake­speare.

From the begin­ning, the archae­ol­o­gists were con­vinced that the skele­tal remains belonged to Richard (check out the pho­to gallery of the bones), but they still need­ed irrefutable proof. So they took DNA sam­ples and matched them to DNA belong­ing to Richard’s liv­ing descen­dants. They await­ed the results, and today Richard Buck­ley, the lead archae­ol­o­gist, told reporters, “Beyond rea­son­able doubt, the indi­vid­ual exhumed … is indeed Richard III, the last Plan­ta­genet king of Eng­land.” You can get more on the sto­ry over at The Guardian and The New York Times.

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