Richard III Suffered an Ignominious Burial, Researchers Find 145
An anonymous reader writes "Richard III may have been the King of England and the subject of a Shakespearean play, but even that couldn't keep him safe from ending up in a hastily-dug grave that ultimately became part of a parking lot, according to a new study published in the journal Antiquity."
Re:News for nerds (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Better than cremation (Score:4, Insightful)
It really would be news if we were to learn that Richard suffered from his burial. That would indicate that he was aware of his surroundings three days after he had clinically died. THIS IS A CASE FOR LIFE AFTER DEATH!! The question that Richard failed to answer is, which, if any religions, offers any real promise of salvation or happiness after death. Poor, suffering Richard - does anyone think that he is still suffering after all this time?
What? (Score:0, Insightful)
News for nerds? No. Stuff that matters? No.
Shakespeare??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, Richard III died in 1495 while Shakespeare was writing plays (like, you know, "Richard III") around 1592 - a hundred years later.
So how was Richard's burial going to be affected by a play that hadn't yet been written, and which wasn't going to be written for another 100 years?
Do you think the early Tudors might have thought, with a little effort: "Oh look! Some playwright will write about this dead king in a hundred years, and the dead king and the playwright will still be famous in 500 years time, so we had better bury this dead king properly."
Re:A bit of perspective folks... (Score:4, Insightful)
FTFY.
He was a right cunt, wasn't he? Just like all the Tudors. The thistle-arsed bastard Stuarts weren't exactly great, but after the Tudors they were a relief.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ignominious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Even kings start to smell bad after a couple of days.
Just dig a hole and drop him in it, he's putting me off my eel pie...
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I guess he started to stink . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
For honored dead, it was called lying in state, for dishonored it was parading the body, but in both cases the reason was the same: to get as many witnesses as possible to the fact the person was well and truly dead. Otherwise, there would be persistent rumors that they were still alive, people pretending to be them (or their children born after their official date of death), and the like. So it was gruesome but completely practical.
And it's not as if the need for this kind of thing has completely gone away. There are still people who are rumored to be alive long after their deaths, like Elvis Presley. In the fight against terrorism, there have been several cases where the US has published pictures of the obviously dead bodies of prominent enemies as a way of proving they're actually dead, and there was considerable speculation among conspiracy theorists about why Osama bin Laden's body was disposed of so quickly.