• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
  • WordPress
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
Science Update

Science Update

Sharing Science | Satisfying Curiosity | Debunking BS

  • Spotlights
  • Reality Check
  • Why Is It?
  • Radio Archives
  • Sciup @ School
Home » Radio Archive » Daily Show » Richard III’s Diet

Richard III’s Diet

August 25, 2014
https://podcast.scienceupdate.com/140825_sciup_king.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window

BOB HIRSHON (host):

A pictorial history of England 1854
The coronation of King Richard III. His coronation is believed to have included sumptuous banquets with a great variety of expensive game. (A Pictorial History of England, 1854)

A diet fit for a king. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Researchers studying the remains of Richard III have identified what the 15th century English monarch ate and drank across his lifetime. Isotope geochemist Angela Lamb of the British Geological Survey says ratios of chemical variants in teeth and bone can reveal what a person was consuming. She says as his power grew, so did the king’s sumptuous banquets, which included beef, pork, venison, freshwater and marine fish, and all manner of wildfowl, from peacocks to swans.

LAMB:

They were a real marking of the upper echelons of society if you were eating those kinds of birds. And they were difficult to catch, expensive, sort of preserved for the ultra rich.

HIRSHON:

What’s more, Richard’s oxygen ratios were unusual for someone living in the east of England.

LAMB:

The oxygen could be explained by an increase in him drinking wine, it was a real status symbol.

HIRSHON:

I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

 

Category: Daily Show, Station DownloadTag: Archaeology, Nutrition & Food Science
Previous Post:Tech Roundup
Next Post:Chinese Internet Censorship

Sidebar

Radio Program Archives

Want to learn more about the brain? The environment? Here you can browse the topics that come up regularly on Science Update.

Search the Archives

Categories

  • Daily Show
  • Station Download
  • Weekly Show

Find By Tag

  • 2020
  • Acoustics & Sound
  • Aging
  • Animal Behavior
  • Anthropology
  • Archaeology
  • Astronomy & Space
  • Biology
  • Brain Science
  • Bugs
  • Chemistry
  • Children & Families
  • cicadas
  • Climate & Weather
  • Communications
  • Computer Science
  • Economics & Business
  • Education
  • Energy
  • Engineering & Technology
  • Environment & Conservation
  • Genetics & Evolution
  • Geology
  • Marine Science
  • Materials Science
  • Mathematics
  • Medicine & Health
  • Microbiology
  • Nanotechnology
  • Nutrition & Food Science
  • Paleontology & Dinosaurs
  • Physics
  • Plants & Agriculture
  • Political Science
  • Reality Check
  • Social & Behavioral Sciences
  • Sports & Fitness
  • spotlight
  • Spotlight Bugs
  • Terrorism & War
  • Why Is It? Questions
  • Wildlife
  • Year in Review

Find By Date

Science Update
  • About Science Update
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • YouTube

Recent Posts

Mayan Honeybee hives
House sparrow wearing top hat rides aboard a red fireworks rocket

Copyright © 2023 · Springtail Media LLC · All Rights Reserved · Powered by Pongos