The weirdest thing is that he is holding this nail in his right hand.
No, he didn’t have a nail in his hand. A nail, of Roman origin, was found at his back. At first, people thought it was an arrow head. But it proved to be from the Roman period and was probably in the area when Richard was put into his shallow grave.
Phillipa Langley, the woman who started the search, is the secretary of the Scottish Richard the Third Society. She’s a screenwriter, not an historian. People have known for centuries his body was in the vicinity but historian John Ashdown-Hill and Langley studied medieval maps to identify his burial spot. They then petitioned the city of Leicester and the University to sponsor the dig. I, and thousands of others, contributed money to fund it.