Richard III videos made available to public

The University of Leicester is making a suite of documentary footage available to media and the public ahead of the reburial of King Richard III.

Hours of video footage captured by documentary maker Carl Vivian is available via the University's YouTube site and extracts are being provided to media crews for their own news and feature outputs.

In total, 20+ videos are being made freely accessible on the University of Leicester YouTube Channel and 26 sequences from these videos are being made available to the media.

The videos include the historic very first moment University of Leicester archaeologist Mat Morris discovered human remains- on the first day of the dig.

In it, Mat can be seen looking at a human leg bone uncovered within hours of the 2012 Grey Friars archaeological dig starting. He confirms it is an articulated skeleton, records it as Skeleton One and covers it over so it is protected until more is known about its context within the site.

Eleven days later Skeleton One was uncovered and displayed staggering circumstantial evidence for it being the remains of King Richard III.

You can view that clip here www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSh1eW7V7KQ

Mat said: "Finding the skeleton's leg on Day 1 was the first significant medieval discovery of the project, although at the time we had no idea how significant it would prove to be. The skeleton was the first material evidence that we were digging in the right area and that the friary must be in the vicinity but at this point on the first day the person could have been buried anywhere, inside the church, outside in the graveyard, in one of the other friary buildings. It took another eleven days to establish that the grave was in the right area of the church to investigate further, with spectacular results."

The videos made during this project are all available on the University of Leicester YouTube channel and include a pre-dig interview with lead archaeologist Richard Buckley in which he describes the chances of finding Richard as a long shot;  the dig and the burial; identifying the remains; the fatal blow; injuries to the remains; DNA analysis and conclusion.

Also included are the Judicial Review decision, the tomb design and much more.

Carl Vivian, from the University's Creative Services team, said: "It's been an incredible adventure and an enormous privilege to be able to follow the story of the search, discovery and identification of King Richard III. From the outset it seemed so unlikely that his remains would be found and then he turns up in trench one on the very first day of the dig - you just couldn't make it up."

"I'm extremely proud of the record that I've made of this project and hope people enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed recording these truly historic moments."