Obligatory post: Richard III
Feb. 5th, 2013 09:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ossamentaSo, the big news broke yesterday: the skeleton that was found in the Greyfriars’ church in Leicester last year is Richard III. A find of a life time for most (all?) people involved, and such sheer luck that the trench hit the base of the grave.
Such a high-profile find means not only a massive media circus but also a documentary of the dig and the post-excavation analysis. One day I will watch such documentaries and feel that my thirst for knowledge has been satisfied. Yesterday was not that day. Admittedly, the documentary did one thing good: it showed that if you have a high emotional investment in the outcome of the research, live recordings of your reactions are very likely to make you look like a complete fool. "That is not the face of a tyrant" - I’m sorry, did you think tyrants had particular features or something???
Luckily, University of Leicester’s project page: The search for Richard III - completed is very informative, particularly for the stuff the documentary glossed over, such as details of the DNA research and osteological changes of the spine caused by the scoliosis. I just wished they had better photographs of the vertebrae.
And finally, people on the internet, can you please stop saying that he was buried in a car park. He was buried in a church, and dug up in a car park. Not the same thing even remotedly.
Such a high-profile find means not only a massive media circus but also a documentary of the dig and the post-excavation analysis. One day I will watch such documentaries and feel that my thirst for knowledge has been satisfied. Yesterday was not that day. Admittedly, the documentary did one thing good: it showed that if you have a high emotional investment in the outcome of the research, live recordings of your reactions are very likely to make you look like a complete fool. "That is not the face of a tyrant" - I’m sorry, did you think tyrants had particular features or something???
Luckily, University of Leicester’s project page: The search for Richard III - completed is very informative, particularly for the stuff the documentary glossed over, such as details of the DNA research and osteological changes of the spine caused by the scoliosis. I just wished they had better photographs of the vertebrae.
And finally, people on the internet, can you please stop saying that he was buried in a car park. He was buried in a church, and dug up in a car park. Not the same thing even remotedly.