The University of Leicester have revealed the injuries inflicted on King Richard III during the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 thanks to new research.
According to the research a total of eleven injuries were found, with nine to his skull and one on his ribs and one to the pelvis. There were several injuries that went into the top of his skull, one with a rondel dagger and also some shaving type injuries, as well as through his cheek and to the front of his jaw.
Professor Sarah Hainsworth, Professor of Materials and Forensic Engineering at the University of Leicester spoke about the injury to the kings pelvis, “we do have images from medieval battles of people sustaining those injuries, but the angle would have been wrong while still wearing his armour, so what we think is more likely is that his armour was removed and the wound was inflicted afterwards and its consistent with the contemporary account of him being slung over the back of a horse, and I think its an insult injury where somebody has stuck a sword or a long dagger in through his right buttock that has gone through and into the pelvis after death”
Professor Hainsworth also spoke about how technology was used to study the bones, “He was looked at in three ways, the first way, was the conventional way in which archaeologist’s would look at the bones, so a visual examination”
“He was also looked at using a medical computed tomography scanner, which is the sort of technology used in hospitals for looking at live patients as well performing autopsies, and that allows you to map the dimensions of the bones to tell you about his sex, to tell you about the age of the skeleton, his height”
“What we have done, is use a technique called micro computed x-ray tomography which allows you to get a much higher resolution images of the actual injuries to the bones”
