One of the great finds during the first dig, after Richard III was discovered,
was the uncovering of this intact stone coffin.
It's the first intact medieval stone coffin that's been excavated in Leicester during a modern excavation.
It was unfortunate we found it at the very end of the excavation, we just ran out of time to look at it closer,
so we had to cover it back up and leave it in situ
and you wouldn't believe how frustrating it is to have to cover something as great as it up
without knowing what's inside it.
So in 2013 the big plan was then to take off the lid of this stone sarcophagus
and then to see what the contents were inside it.
The whole stone sarcophagus wasn't lifted in one piece partly because it was going to be too heavy
and we’d have to get a crane in, which would have to reach right across the site.
And as we sort of carefully cleaned off the top and down the sides it was fairly obvious
that the weight of the lid of the coffin had started to crack the stonework
and we didn't think it would lift intact if we went down the route of trying to lift the whole thing.
So we decided we’d lift the lid first.
We did think maybe we needed to get some lifting apparatus in to lift it but the site was so uneven,
it's an archaeological excavation, that there was no way we were going to be able to bring something in
without creating some very elaborate sort of scaffolding for it to sit on.
So in the end we went with the old-school method and we lifted up one end of the lid
and managed the slide lifting straps underneath it
and then nine of us lifted the lid off and moved it across the site.
Inside then we found a more or less intact lead coffin,
so essentially it's a stone sarcophagus with an inner lead casket.
So now we were faced with the situation of trying to extract the lead casket from out of the coffin,
but the stone coffin was really badly cracked, although it was in situ in the ground
the weight of the lid had completely fractured the stonework,
so in the end we were able to carefully dismantle one side of the stone coffin
using the existing crack lines, so that we could slide a wooden plank underneath the lead coffin
and just lift the wooden plank so the wooden plank took the weight
and in the end it was quite a smooth and easy operation
and they only took two of us to lift the lead coffin out of the stone coffin.
And we had it transported to Leicester Royal Infirmary initially because there was a slight chance
that the lead in a coffin had actually caused some organic preservation and the remains within it,
as it turned out after an examination with an endoscope it was clear that the person in this coffin
had becomes skeletonized, so the normal processes of decay had taken place.
So opening up a lead coffin was an interesting challenge
it's not something I've ever had to do before in my career, but lead is very soft
and in the end we decided what we do rather than try and break the solder of the seals of the coffin
because that could sort destroy important archaeological information,
was that we'd cut a line round the base of the coffin
and lift the lid and sides off it and leave the base as a
tray with the skeletal material on and is a little like opening a tin can,
it is just simply a case of getting a knife in and cutting the lead and it cuts really smoothly.
Once we'd cut the lid and sides off and lifted them off what we had was
basically the skeleton laid out on the lead base of the casket.
There was a few little fragments of linen or some sort of cloth material surviving at the base of the grave,
a little bit of cord still survived and these might be the remains of the shroud
and a little bit of hair survived as well, but that was it otherwise it was just the skeleton.
So a grave like this, very elaborate stone sarcophagus led in a casket buried in a very prominent position
in the church close to the high altar you've got to think this person was important to the friars
and we do know the names of a few other people connected with the friary.
We have the names of a couple of Franciscan provincial ministers buried at Leicester, for instance,
so it could it be someone like that, but no it can't because it's a woman,
so that rules out any men connected with the friary,
but we do have the names of a few women associated with the friary, we have seven altogether.
We know this woman was over 60 when she died, stable isotope analysis of her bones suggests
that she had a very high-status diet, that she was eating a lot of fish and meat
and in fact when you compare her diet with Richard III’s it's only just below his adult diet
and radiocarbon dating tells us that she died either in the latter half of the 13th century
or in the 14th century, so about 100 years at least before Richard III.
So we can take all this and apply it to that list of names
and for a start we can rule three of them out because they all died in the 16th century,
so they're too late to be the skeleton.
Of the four remaining the big one is Eleanor Countess of Leicester, we know she was a patron of the friary,
but unfortunately she died in France and was buried in France as far as we know so it's unlikely to be her.
Of the other three there's only one that we know for certain that is definitely buried in our friary church,
her name's Emma Holt, so she's probably from Nevill Holt in Leicestershire,
but that's about all we know about her,
we know she was buried around about 1290 in the friary Church and that's it.
We don't know her age at death, we don't know what she did for a living, we don't know what she looked like,
we don't have any descendants from her, so despite having a known woman buried here
and a skeleton with a set of attributes we can't link the two together
and unfortunately this skeleton will always remain anonymous.