Richard III & the Car Park

[Phil H]

There is a Roman mosaic under the steps to the Wren Library of Lincoln Cathedral. Just off the cloisters. Any subsequent building over a Roman city site is likely to produce much the same.

Phil H

[Sally]

There is a Roman mosaic under the steps to the Wren Library of Lincoln Cathedral. Just off the cloisters. Any subsequent building over a Roman city site is likely to produce much the same.

Phil H

Not so much really, Phil. You'd be asking for the cathedral to be built directly over a building with mosaic pavements; so a town house, for example. Not all Roman buildings, by any stretch of the imagination, had mosaic pavements. Much depends on date and location.

I don't doubt that Roman remains are to be found under many buildings in former Roman cities. I know of a few myself. However, a basilica under a cathedral would be news to me. That's why I asked. There need be no causal relationship between Roman remains and the buildings built over them, although sometimes there may be.

[Monty]

Hi all,

I have been following this thread with great interest. Whilst that interest in Richard III is not as exstensive as some here, I do find it all very fascinating.

My Brother is an Archaeologist who went to the same Uni as the chap who is heading this dig. Therefore he used this connection to get myself and he onto the site and into the dig itself. Ive managed to get a 'exclusive' few photos which Im hoping to obtain permission to use.

However, I revisted the site today during an open public viewing and obtained some photos which I am allowed to show, they are below.

To clear up the speculation here, The University of Leicester was approached by The King Richard III society and asked if they would joing forces to search King Richard IIIs remains. This was in 2000. The University agreed and there was an exchange of information, further joint research conducted and an agreement reached between both parties that they were pretty confident this could be done.

Leicester City Council were approached, as it is their land, and they happily agreed to let the dig happen.

Excavations have been made revealing Greyfriars Friary including a clositer walk, chapter house and church.

3 trenches were made.

Trench 3 revealed nothing more that robbed out walling.

Trench 2 revealed The Cloister walk. Tiled flooring was located in this trench along with wall remains, which have been robbed out. They also managed to pick up some wall plastering and signs of a doorway.

Trench 1 revealed the Chapter House and Church Choir. Again robbed walls were prominant however some stone benches were also identified. At the north end of this trench were further robbed out walls in what is identified as 'Walking Place'. At the - marking on the map is where a male body was found which may be the remains of King Richard III.

Below is a map which may help those interested get their bearings. Also some photos of my visit today.

1. Map of Greyfriars
2. Trench 2 showing The Cloister Walk
3. Trench 3 showing Chapter House wall and bench
4. Trench 3 showing the burial site.
5. Same photo as above. Top yellow peg showing where the feet lay. Bottom yellow peg the head.

Cheers
Monty

[Sally]

Monty

Thanks

So that's him, is it? A miracle he wasn't chopped to bits by that later wall when it went in.

[Monty]

Monty

Thanks

So that's him, is it? A miracle he wasn't chopped to bits by that later wall when it went in.

That's exactly what Richard, my brothers friend said Sally.

Yes, the wall is mid victorian and came withing inches of the burial Sally. If the Victorian builders had located the body the concensus is that it would just have been thrown into the rubble pile and lost forever.

Essentially, the was it was described to me, is that this was akin to keyhole surgery. In and out.

What you do not see, and I did when I had a private viewing, is that the burial spot was topped with a stone casket lid. I suspect it was that which the Geophys picked up.

I walked past the dig every day and could see the spot where the body was located. It was all open fence until suddenly, tarpaulin appeared covering the spot. Thinking back, I know realise why.

Monty

[Sally]

That's exactly what Richard, my brothers friend said Sally.

Yes - pretty close call there!

Yes, the wall is mid victorian and came withing inches of the burial Sally. If the Victorian builders had located the body the concensus is that it would just have been thrown into the rubble pile and lost forever.

I guessed that, nice, big, Victorian bricks. Those photos are a good demonstration of how stratigraphy is destroyed by later activity. Perhaps a picture will tell a thousand words - save me wittering on any more.

Essentially, the was it was described to me, is that this was akin to keyhole surgery. In and out.

Yes, those are targetted trenches. It is obvious (well, at least it was to me) that the excavation was looking for Richard.

What you do not see, and I did when I had a private viewing, is that the burial spot was topped with a stone casket lid. I suspect it was that which the Geophys picked up.

Ah, I was wondering whether there'd been any GPR - that makes sense. Interesting, any hope of dating that stone lid? Shape, decoration, etc might help.

I walked past the dig every day and could see the spot where the body was located. It was all open fence until suddenly, tarpaulin appeared covering the spot. Thinking back, I know realise why.

It must be pretty cool having all that happening on your doorstep - hopefully you will get to publish your other photos.

Thanks for posting those today.

[Errata]

That's exactly what Richard, my brothers friend said Sally.

Yes, the wall is mid victorian and came withing inches of the burial Sally. If the Victorian builders had located the body the concensus is that it would just have been thrown into the rubble pile and lost forever.


Monty

If it had a stone casket lid, I'm actually not that surprised the wall is so close to the remains. Here we are built half on limestone, half on clay, with no rhyme or reason to it. Any number of buildings, gardens, walls, pools, etc. have been shifted a couple of feet to one side of the original plan because of a giant slab of rock that no one wants to dig out or blast out. The Victorian builders probably did what we do. Hit rock, move over, hit rock, move over, don't hit rock, build. Usually in about one foot increments.

What I find surprising is that they found anyone at all with such surgical strike dig. Especially because "Richard" isn't exactly where he was supposed to be, and there isn't a trench where he was supposed to be. Everything I read has said he was by the altar. Even with GPS, I would have had a trench bisecting the altar section, though for all I know that's right under some guy's house.

[Sally]

The Victorian builders probably did what we do. Hit rock, move over, hit rock, move over, don't hit rock, build. Usually in about one foot increments.

Wouldn't have been that big Errata. We're talking about a Medieval grave slab presumably, not a Roman sarcophagus. If the Victorian builders had hit it, it probably wouldn't have been hard to get it out. I think more likely it was never discovered.

What I find surprising is that they found anyone at all with such surgical strike dig. Especially because "Richard" isn't exactly where he was supposed to be, and there isn't a trench where he was supposed to be. Everything I read has said he was by the altar. Even with GPS, I would have had a trench bisecting the altar section, though for all I know that's right under some guy's house.

But there is a trench in the 'altar' area, isn't there? That's where mystery woman came from. And it's GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) not GPS (Global Positioning System).

[Phil H]

I don't think the PRECISE positioning of Richard III's grave was known. Only that it was in a prominent position in the chancel area. No doubt had the trenches not hit a grave they could have been expanded.

There was a local tradition about a stone coffin (said to have been that of Richard III which was used as a horse-trough. this went with the baseless local tradition that the bones from it had been tossed ino the river. But the style of the stone coffin was not one used in C15th.

Richard was, as I recall from the link I inserted a few pages back, buried in a shroud but without a coffin. The memorial effigy erected at Henry VII's cost would NOT have enclosed the body but have stood over the place where the burial was supposed to be. It disappeared sometime after the dissolution in the 1530s. So apart from any depth of easrth over the remains, the most proection that would have had would be a flagstone, and I suspect not even that.

Edited to add that in the report I saw, the remains are missing its feet, so perhaps an earlier (Victorian?) trench did damage the grave and its contents.

Phil H

[Monty]

Re- reading my post, I can see how its misleading.

To be clear. The exact location wasn't know, hence the dig. They merely assessed the chances. Which is pretty precise when you think about it.

Not only can I confirm a stone casket, I have a photo of it. As said, I'm hoping for the A-OK to post it.

The story of the casket being used as a trough, well I heard it was used to plant flowers in at Earl Shilton. It is, I believe, laying at the Heritage Centre at Bosworth field.

Monty

[Phil H]

So much to catch up on!

I don't doubt that Roman remains are to be found under many buildings in former Roman cities. I know of a few myself. However, a basilica under a cathedral would be news to me. That's why I asked. There need be no causal relationship between Roman remains and the buildings built over them, although sometimes there may be.

Sally - I wasn't suggesting a basilica under Lincoln Cathedral! That was under my childhood home! But at Lincoln, there was an early, late Roman church, dedicated to St Paul, built in the centre of the Forum - its outline has now been exposed and can be viewed. If the Norman builders had chosen that spot, then the basilica would probably have been under the cathedral.

Lindum was a colonia - a settlement deliberately built to impress locals with Roman civilisation, but quite a few mosaics have been found, not least in bath suites.

If the upper city of Lincoln was to be fully excavated - unlikely given that it is full of later "heritage" properties, I think a huge amount would be discovered. We know, for instance, that the Roman sewer still exists under the main north south street of the Roman town (now called Bailgate) which was at one time part of Ermine Street - the Roman road from London to York. The west gate of the Roman town lies under the embankment on which the medieval castle walls are built, and the east gate - perhaps the main one, lies partially under the Cathedral green (I remember Graham Webster, one of the top military experts in Roman archaeology digging it in the 50s) with the other half exposed in the carpark of a hotel on the other side of the road.

I say this simply to point out the density of known remains.

Phil H

[Phil H]

Thanks, Monty - I do hope you can post more pics. I can understand that the remains themselves are sensitive, though I hope one day to see a pic of the skull - even perhaps see the bones.

Not only can I confirm a stone casket, I have a photo of it. As said, I'm hoping for the A-OK to post it.

That is VERY interesting. I cannot now locate where I found the comment about there being evidence of only a shroud - but perhaps that was within the stone sarcophagus.

Thanks again, I am indebted to you.

Phil H

[Monty]

Hi Phil,

That's ok. I'm trying to pass on as much info as I'm allowed. To be honest its simply the fact I cannot get in contact with Mark directly to gain permission, not because its sensitive. He is a pretty cool Guy and I'm confident the answer will be yes.

I don't want to overstep my bounds as it were.

I suspect the body was in situ when I took the photo. So I'm not party to news of a shroud and to be honest, I've not asked since.

The stories I heard never mentioned a casket. However, as you mentioned, Henry did place a memorial stone. If the body was re interred during that process I'm not sure. To be honest, I don't think Leicester Uni are either.

Monty

[RivkahChaya]

Rivkah - I shared a house with a woman once who insisted that the famous televised moon landing was fake because 'you could see the set wobbling'.

Well, then the US government is really bloody brilliant, because they faked a FAILED moon mission, Apollo 13. That'll really keep the public guessing. Or maybe they had to fake the fail, because somebody bumped that wobbly set, and it fell over.

Seriously, she didn't realize those were satellite transmissions? not 16mm films the astronauts were supposed to have made and brought back?

I'd like to know where they think the return module came from, you know, the one that fell from the sky into the ocean, and then the astronauts came to the surface. There were eyewitnesses to that. Did they all get paid off? How much? there's a job I'd like.

Back to Richard. My cousin says scoliosis can be caused by an injury, particularly to the ribcage. If a rib fracture heals in a way that it shortens a rib, or causes two of them to fuse, and especially if it happens to someone who hasn't stopped growing, that can cause scoliosis, and it just gets worse with time, because the more you lean in to the injury, or favor one side, the more one half of a pair of muscles gets tight, and you lose range of motion.

Do we know if Richard ever had an injury that could have caused a rib fracture? Yes, I know, he fought in wars, and it's pretty likely that something like that did happen. I'm just wondering if there's a record, and maybe a record of him being laid up for a while. Is there a record of something like a fall from a horse that failed to make a jump, or a blow from an ax, that didn't penetrate his armor, but left a bruise that stayed for weeks?

Yes, I realize that a study of this skeleton can tell us not only that he had scoliosis, but possibly why, and whether he also had something like arthritis, what kinds of old, healed injuries he had, etc., but it would be nice if the skeleton tallied with the historical record, or at least, reflected major, known injuries.

[Phil H]

To be honest its simply the fact I cannot get in contact with Mark directly to gain permission, not because its sensitive. He is a pretty cool Guy and I'm confident the answer will be yes.

I can imagine that the whole question of pics, or of exposing the remains to public view, will become a very sensitive issue in due course. There will be public interest in seeing the bones (from historians, writers and members of the Richard III Society for starters, I'd guess) to be balanced against the view that this is a dead person who should be trated with dignity and not gawped at!! Complicating that will be the whole question of it being a potential royal personage (an anointed King no less).

But I guess that the archaeologists will need to be able to publish their findings and that will require photo references, so that might deal with the issue.

Personally, I'd like to see a decorous "lying in state" of the bones in Leicester to which the public might have entry, before the re-internment, which I'd put money on being in Leicester. (I'd like to see him laid to rest with his wife at Westminster, but I striongly suspect that the claims of Leicester (his "home" for 500 years) will be the clincher.

I suspect the body was in situ when I took the photo. So I'm not party to news of a shroud and to be honest, I've not asked since.

My understanding - for which I cannot now find the source, was that there was evidence of a shroud, now vanished through natural decay. I assume they would tell because the confinement of a shroud would dictate the pose of the skeleton that survived.

The stories I heard never mentioned a casket. However, as you mentioned, Henry did place a memorial stone. If the body was re interred during that process I'm not sure. To be honest, I don't think Leicester Uni are either.

I'll try to post a summary later today of what i have gleaned from my references.

Thanks again Monty, you have no idea how much this means to me!!

Phil H