The day I met the Romans

 

It's quite exciting getting a scoop. Following a  tip off, I was in another Leicester car park in mid April. With archaeologists from the University of Leicester..

 

They'd found bones.

 

Oh, talk about deja vu! But no, they weren't searching for another King.

 

John Thomas and his team were in the car park of the old Antiques  Centre on the corner of Oxford Street and Newarke Street....where I've parked my car many a time when spending a wet afternoon hunting down old and vintage treasures. The antiques centre has lain empty for a number of years now....and the whole site is going to be developed , building extra accomodation for  students at De Montfort University.

 

John is on the left...this is in the first trench, only feet from the car park gates. Almost immediately John and his team found at least ten bodies...and he suspected others were hiding.

I was standing in a cemetery ....a Roman cemetery from 300 to 400 AD.

 



 



In the last few weeks John has found another three bodies, so thirteen were in the car park in total. Both men and women, they had different types of burials.including east to west and north to south-oriented graves, many with personal items such as hobnailed shoes. But some of the Roman burial traditions seem strange to us today. One of the bodies found had been decapitated ...and the head put on the body.

 

 

In Roman times, burials were not allowed within the town gates ...and the location , just outside the town walls was a busy southern suburb at the time.



 

The people buried here may have lived approximately one thousand and seven hundred years ago, but as you can see from the next photograph , the history that divides us is so close....a mere  four or five feet deep away.

 

 

 



 

It was a privilege to see the early part of the dig...and to be within hand touching distance of those who lived and died so long ago. John is used to this now, but I'm not, and it was an eerie feeling.

watching them as they lay open to the elements after so many hundreds of years undisturbed underground.  I said a prayer for them as I left.



 

Do have a listen to my interview with John Thomas here....to hear more about the dig, and the mediaeval finds on the site too.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p018dk7y

 

The day I met the Romans

 

It's quite exciting getting a scoop. Following a  tip off, I was in another Leicester car park in mid April. With archaeologists from the University of Leicester..

 

They'd found bones.

 

Oh, talk about deja vu! But no, they weren't searching for another King.

 

John Thomas and his team were in the car park of the old Antiques  Centre on the corner of Oxford Street and Newarke Street....where I've parked my car many a time when spending a wet afternoon hunting down old and vintage treasures. The antiques centre has lain empty for a number of years now....and the whole site is going to be developed , building extra accomodation for  students at De Montfort University.

 

John is on the left...this is in the first trench, only feet from the car park gates. Almost immediately John and his team found at least ten bodies...and he suspected others were hiding.

I was standing in a cemetery ....a Roman cemetery from 300 to 400 AD.

 



 



In the last few weeks John has found another three bodies, so thirteen were in the car park in total. Both men and women, they had different types of burials.including east to west and north to south-oriented graves, many with personal items such as hobnailed shoes. But some of the Roman burial traditions seem strange to us today. One of the bodies found had been decapitated ...and the head put on the body.

 

 

In Roman times, burials were not allowed within the town gates ...and the location , just outside the town walls was a busy southern suburb at the time.



 

The people buried here may have lived approximately one thousand and seven hundred years ago, but as you can see from the next photograph , the history that divides us is so close....a mere  four or five feet deep away.

 

 

 



 

It was a privilege to see the early part of the dig...and to be within hand touching distance of those who lived and died so long ago. John  is used to this now, but I'm not, and it was an eerie feeling.

watching them as they lay open to the elements after so many hundreds of years undisturbed underground.  I said a prayer for them as I left.



 

Do have a listen to my interview with John Thomas here....to hear more about the dig, and the mediaeval finds on the site too.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p018dk7y

 

And the track for today is from the Cure..."Sleep when I'm dead"....

 

 

Richard III -days of hype and hope

Within the next twenty four hours we will know the outcome of one of the biggest historical cliffhangers for many years .

Are the bones that were found in a Leicester car park back in September last year, really those of the last Plantaganet King, Richard III?

 It's a story, which quite rightly has captured the imagination of millions worldwide, and like others , I've been following the story very closely. I was there broadcasting from the car park on the day it was announced that the body COULD be that of Richard III. There's more on that here

http://www.thinkingofthedays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-day-they-found-king-richard-111.html

 I was there at the press conference  where there was a very real sense of wonder as archaeologists Richard Buckley and Lin Foxhall from the University of Leicester itemised their findings so far. And I've interviewed Lin several times since then...she's so upbeat, so engaging about the quest but giving nothing away.

Since then, everyone's been playing a waiting game. Waiting for the DNA results on the body...which locally sparked off jokes about why they would take three months to connect the DNA from the body to a descendent from Canada. when people featured on the Jeremy Kyle show on television can get instant access to their DNA results.

But it's not a question of  just DNA results, the remains have been carbon dated and analysed environmentally in an effort to confirm the identification. Meticulous records, time consuming tests  on a  body in a secret location, baby sat and protected by volunteers for months.

In Leicestershire though, there's a real conviction that the body must be Richard III. Why else would Leicester City Council buy an empty Victorian building next to the site where the body was found?
St Martins Place,which cost £850,000, and formerly owned by Leicester Grammar School until five years ago, could potentially be used as a visitor centre.

I hope with all my heart that it is King Richard III who lay buried for over 500 years a stone's throw from where I work.

Firstly, because I've always been interested in this period of history, subscribing to the belief that yes, he was a "much maligned King", and always hating the thought that his body had been thrown in to the nearby River Soar.

Secondly, if it is Richard, then visitor numbers to the city will rocket...

Thirdly...it will be such a brilliant archaeological coup for the University of Leicester.

And  fourthly, ...and this is the big one.....after some banter on twitter with some other local journalists the other week , I did vow to show my knickers in Leicester's mediaeval Guildhall if the body wasn't Richard.

So there you have it. Until tomorrow I'm wishing and hoping  - that there'll be celebrations  that the King has been found...and that my knickers do not get an airing in the Guildhall.

Today's track is by Dusty Springfield...."Wishin and Hopin"

The day they found King Richard III

A week ago today I was up early ...at 4.30am to be precise. Up early to cover a story which has captured the imagination of the world's press......and at the centre of the story, a location two minutes walk away from the BBC studios.

That's why I was in all alone in a car park at 6.45am,  radio car mast up, raring to go on a story which has made my heart sing. Was the body of poor, much maligned Richard III really found under a car park owned by Leicester City Council?

 

 

At that stage, we didn't know...the University of Leicester had issued a press release saying human remains had been found at the archeological dig hunting for the body of the King, and that there would be a press conference at 11am.

So for my first four pieces on air, all I could do was talk about the dig, describe the three trenches that had been dug by archaeologists,

 

 

 

give a potted history about the King, his last battle, and his death, and reiterate that the remains found could be his.

 

But for the University to hold such a press conference, there had to be some real news, and I was so keen to find out. After eight, I interviewed Sir Peter Soulsby, the City Mayor of Leicester live on air...and all the time we spoke he was grinning from ear to ear with a barely suppressed excitement. He still wouldn't tell me whether it was Richard III 's body that had been found of course, but by now, I couldn't wait for 11am.

Meanwhile, it was still quiet in the car park....Matthew Morris, the archaeologist who was there when they found the skeleton, and a few of his team were there at 8am...but it was the lull before the storm.

 

Here's the exact spot where the remains were found

 

 

By half past ten, the beautiful, medieval Guildhall in Leicester was heaving with people, lights, cameras. Most of the daily newspapers had sent down reporters, and TV camera crews were there from all the major news networks here in the UK and from Canada too..

A panel of experts, from the University of Leicester, led by Richard Buckley, were on stage to give us the news we had all been waiting for......that the remains appeared to be of an adult male.

 

The remains were found in the choir of the Franciscan friary, and the Choir was the area reported in the historical record as the burial place of King Richard III.

There was a pause....then we were told the skeleton appeared to have suffered significant perimortem trauma to the skull consistent with an injury received in battle, and a bladed implement appeared to have cleaved part of the rear of the skull.

Notice, at this stage, we were getting a lot of "appeared to", but we were already on the edge of our seats. But Philippa Langley, an author, screenwriter, and a member of the Richard III Society, told us, in breathy and emotional tones, that a ballad written just after the Battle of Bosworth claimed that Richard III died after being hit on the head with a poleaxe.

 

We were also informed that a barbed iron arrowhead was found between the vertebrae of the skeleton’s upper back.

And then came the killer line....the skeleton found in the Choir area had spinal abnormalities and the individual would have had severe scoliosis – which is a form of spinal curvature. This would have made his right shoulder appear visibly higher than his left shoulder. This was consistent with contemporary accounts of Richard's appearance.

 

There were audible intakes of breath around the Guildhall, and the panel was grinning. However, the experts are still hedging their bets, saying that they cannot confirm anything until the results of DNA tests.

A direct descendent of Richard III has been found...Michael Ibsen is a seventeenth-generation descendent through the female line.....and his DNA tests will be compared to those of the body found under the car park.

 

I really can't wait to hear the results.

 

So after the press conference, it was back to the dig in the car park to interview Richard Buckley who is heading the dig and archeologist Matthew Morrison. ...which by now was crowded with people, camera crews, the City Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby and a couple of his bodyguards..

 

 

 

What a genuinely exciting day it was .....with a 500-year-old mystery that is within a whisker of being solved.

Mind you, there's a more modern mystery connected with the find. Since the discovery of the body, there's a new account on twitter @richard_third

 

I don't know who's writing it, but the tweets are hilarious,  topical and make my day in a surreal sort of way.

 

 

There's another question that is already being debated - IF the body IS that of Richard III where should his body be reburied? Many say he should stay here in Leicester...in the Cathedral, a stone's throw away. But after 527 years in Leicester, could it be that Richard III could finally leave the city?