Scientists are to sequence the entire genome of Richard III -- the King found buried beneath an English car parking lot -- in an attempt to discover once and for all what the long-missing monarch really looked like.
Experts hope the project will reveal the color of Richard's hair and eyes, and uncover the genetic markers for any health conditions he suffered, or might have been at risk of, had he not been killed, aged just 32, at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.
"It should give us an insight into his genetic make-up, his predisposition to disease," said Turi King, the geneticist who will lead the genome project.
King, who carried out the DNA tests on the bones, proving their royal identity, said she was particularly keen "to see whether or not Richard was predisposed towards scoliosis, for example."
If the tests succeed, they should enable historians to tell just how accurate portraits of the controversial King are, and give them an insight into whether pro-Tudor propaganda in the decades after his death meant he was painted in a deliberately unflattering light.
"There are no contemporary portraits of Richard," said King. "All the portraits that exist post-date his death by about 40 to 50 years onwards. So it's going to be interesting to see what the genetic information provides in relation to what we know from the portraits."
Richard III is best known as the hunchbacked anti-hero of Shakespeare's play, whose physical deformities echo his villainous nature, and who is blamed for the murder of his nephews, the princes in the tower, but many modern historians believe that image is exaggerated, and have sought to rehabilitate his reputation.
He will be the first known historical figure to have his genes studied in this way; scientists have previously sequenced the genomes of Oetzi the Iceman, a number of Neanderthals, and most recently a hunter-gatherer from Spain.
Sequencing the first human genome took 13 years and cost about $3 billion; now it can be done for a fraction of that cost, in a matter of hours.
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