The spine of Richard III is seen in this photograph provided by the University of Leicester and received in London on February 4, 2013.
Richard III was famously portrayed by Shakespeare as a hunchback — and that description seems to have some basis in fact. The vertebrae uncovered by the excavation team reveal a severely curved spine, a condition which University of Leicester researchers believe set in when he was young. But Shakespeare seems to have taken a liberty by giving Richard III a withered arm — researchers found no evidence to support that ailment.