A Royal Find? :)

So i know i've talked before on this page about how much archaeology and history fascinate me.  There are times i think i should have been an archaeologist, but time has passed.. and i'm satisfied and happy with my life the way it is!  But one of my favorite hobbies.. if i can call it a hobby.. is armchair archaeology.  I'll bet you didn't know there is such a thing?  LOL.  I love Archaeology Magazine.  I prefer it to Vogue or Martha Stewart Living.  The photos in it are just as beautiful, though they are of piles of dirt, ruined buildings, and 'digging' tools!  And the articles!  Oh my pounding heart!  True stories of cave paintings,  ancient artifacts,  Bronze Age gold jewelry,  present day finds in the Egyptian Pyramids, and bog bodies in Ireland and Scotland.  They go on and on.  It feels, in a sense, that i can go back in time.  Way back in time, without digging in the desert sand and in the swamps myself.  :)  Reading archaeology articles feeds my desire for more knowledge about our history as humans.. how certain customs or mores developed in our world.  Endlessly enthralling.  Just Sunday evening, i spent five hours, that's right, five hours, watching 'Alien Deep with Bob Ballard' on the National Geographic channel.  He's a geologist/oceanographer who sails around the world on his explorer ship the Nautilus, (with his crew,) and searches the ocean deep for wrecks from our distant past.  I was in heaven.  The first episode was the most interesting of all.  They found a wreck of a cargo ship that was sunk in the Mediterranean Sea 300 years before the time of Alexander the Great.  My mouth watered.  :)  More so than it does when i'm just about to take a first bite of a piece of delicious apple pie a la mode!

Anyway.. there's one particular archaeological discovery i want to talk about here.  A body has been discovered under a car park in Leicester, England that may or may not be that of Richard III, the last Yorkist King of England!  DNA tests are being done (and compared to a descendant) to determine whether or not it is indeed he.  And if it is Richard III, where should he be buried?  He's entitled to a Royal burial at Westminster Abbey, but when he was still living all those years ago; he stated a desire to be buried at York Minster.  I've always been enthralled by stories of the Lancasters and the Yorks and the War of the Roses.  I've read fictional, well researched novels about them and history books about that era of English history.  The white rose and the red.  :)  I'm posting an article here from the UK Guardian that spells out more details  of this find if you'd like to read.  I read this piece and i felt transported to the 15th century.  On one hand, i know that these events occurred over 500 years ago, but these were real people we can never know.  In a way it feels as though i'm watching a film.. or the Shakespeare play, Richard III!  I see, in my mind's eye, the scenes playing out.  Of their family lives, the battles in which they fought..  Here's the piece for you to see..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/sep/18/blogpost-richard-lll-york-minster-leicester-university-bosworth-archaeology

Did you find that as interesting as i do?  And it was a skeleton the archaeologists found.. not a body.  I think i've read so many murder mysteries in my time, that i prefer that term.  LOL  And just for fun, i want to include a piece of music written in the 15th century in England.  Hope you love this too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK16e-Emrms

Did that put you in a 15th Century Yorkshire mood?  I think it's beautiful in a haunting kind of way.

Time to close for now.  It's time for our four fabulous felines to eat their supper!  First of course...

Serene and gorgeous!  I'll return soon. Hope you're all having a fantastic week.   M