King Richard III and Johann Bessler - their graves.

I watched a documentary on TV the other night about the discovery of the remains of King Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet Kings of England.   The burial was discovered just over two feet beneath the surface of a car park in Leicester.  A DNA test was carried out on the bones and compared to a 17th generation descendant, Michael Ibsen, a Canadian-born carpenter living in London, and found to be a perfect match.

Now you can probably see where this is going!  Bessler is believed to have requested permission to construct a family grave in his own garden at his house in Karlshafen.  There are conflicting stories about what happened to his body after his fall from the windmill in Fursteberg.  Local people say his body was buried in a grave in the forest which was apparently traditional in those days. The forest is about two hours  walk away and is apparently full of graves, some of them very old and with writing which is all but illegible.  However given his preparations for his burial in the family grave, and the existence of his wife and children plus their strong religious convictions most peope share my belief that he was buried as he requested in the garden of his house.

We know which house he lived in and the small town has hardly altered since his day and a correspondent who lived locally at the time carried out some research for me and came to the conclusion that the garden behind Bessler's house is now a car park!

I'm sure that when the solution to Bessler's wheel is found the local authority in Karlshafen will sit up and take notice, because they were very interested at one time in publishing my biography in German to encourage tourism, but they were in financial straits at the time and decided against publication.  Anything which will bring tourists to this little place will be welcomed by the town council and there is an antiquarain bookshop, right next to Bessler's house, whose owners will probably be happy to help foot the bill to dig up the carpark.

The reason I think it will be useful to try to find Bessler's grave is because, to me it is inconceivable to think he would not have taken the opportunity a grave gave him to leave a message for us.  He specifically requested permission for a grave to be placed in his own garden, something that went counter to local tradition.  He left a million pieces of clues about his machine and his encoded messages were spread throughout his papers, he sought post humous recognition for his wheel and what better place to leave it than on his grave.

One more thing.  Bessler's brother Gottfried was also buried in the same grave in 1765, twenty years after Bessler.  So it must have existed in its own right for many years.

JC

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