The horrendous wounds that killed Richard III

  • Science
  • BBC World, @bbc_ciencia

image source, University of Leicester

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A team of forensics will finish the remains of Ricardo III to determine the weapons and injuries that caused his death.

This is the scene: King Richard III dismounts from his horse, trapped in a bog, and for some reason is not wearing his warrior’s helmet. There, in the mud, several people attack him with swords, daggers and the sharp points of other medieval weapons, causing at least 11 wounds that are marked in his bones.

More than 500 years later, the scientific analysis of his skeletal remains has shown to reconstruct the violent death of the last English king who lost his life on a battlefield, on August 22, 1485.

On that fateful day, say forensic researchers at the University of Leicester in the UK, he was even stabbed after death.

image source, Reuters

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DNA analysis allowed the remains of Richard III to be identified and his face to be reconstructed.

To determine what Ricardo’s brutal end was like, investigators used CT scans to analyze his 500-year-old skeleton, which was found in 2012 under a parking lot in the city of Leicester, after having been missing for five centuries.

By Robert Collins

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