A team of archaeologists has claimed that William Shakespeare's skull was "probably" stolen from its final resting place in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon, England. 
 
 The conclusion brings new credence to a long-discredited claim that the skull was stolen from the playwright's grave by trophy hunters in 1794. 
 
 "We came across this very odd, strange thing at the head end," lead archaeologist Kevin Colls, of Staffordshire University, told The Guardian. "It was very obvious, within all the data we were getting, that there was something different going on at that particular spot. We have concluded it is signs of disturbance, of material being dug out and put back again." 
 
 Shakespeare's grave famously bears the poetic admonition, "Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear, / To dig the dust enclosed here. / Blessed be the man that spares these stones, / And cursed be he that moves my bones." 
 
 Holy Trinity Church vicar Patrick Taylor told Sky News he is not so sure about the grave robbery theory. 
 
 "We now know much more about how Shakespeare was buried," Taylor said. "We are not convinced, however, that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that his skull has been taken. 
 
 "We shall have to live with the mystery of not knowing fully what lies beneath the stone." 
 
 Colls' team was permitted to examine the grave at Stratford's Holy Trinity Church because ground-penetrating radar technology permitted them to do so without disturbing the remains of the famous playwright. 
 
 The archaeologists have also determined that Shakespeare was not buried standing up, contrary to tradition, and that he was laid to rest wrapped in a shroud rather than in a coffin. 
 
 The claim that the skull was stolen was first published in a magazine in 1879. Colls said the team investigated a skull held at a church 15 miles from Stratford and found it could not be Shakespeare's. 
 
 Their findings will be part of a television program broadcast in the U.K. Saturday to mark the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death. 
 
 Click for more from The Guardian. 
 
 Click for more from Sky News. 
 
 ||||| William Shakespeare’s skull is likely to have been stolen by trophy hunters, a new documentary claims. 
 
 An archaeological survey of the playwright’s grave at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon appears to give new credence to theories that Shakespeare’s grave was looted in 1794—rumors of which have been debunked as myth until now. The theory was first published in The Argosy magazine in 1879. 
 
 Archaeologist Kevin Colls of Staffordshire University led the investigation of Shakespeare’s grave for a new documentary on the U.K.’s Channel 4 to mark the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death in April. Colls and his team conducted a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) search using state-of-the-art technology. 
 
 Key among their discoveries was an apparent repair to the head end of Shakespeare’s burial site, indicating a previous disturbance to his final resting place. 
 
 “We have Shakespeare’s burial with an odd disturbance at the head end and we have a story that suggests that at some point in history someone’s come in and taken the skull of Shakespeare. It’s very, very convincing to me that his skull isn’t at Holy Trinity at all,” said Colls in the documentary. 
 
 The televised investigation led Colls and his team to look into another legend: that Shakespeare’s skull was sealed in a crypt inside St. Leonard’s church in Worcestershire, some 15 miles away from his gravesite. However, a forensic anthropological survey conducted by Colls and his team found the skull in the crypt in fact belongs to an unknown woman, thought to be in her 70s when she died. 
 
 Colls also discovered that Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway had been buried in one-meter-deep shallow graves beneath the church’s floor, and not further below ground in a family vault as previously thought. 
 
 The GPR scan found no indication of metal, such as nails used for coffins, indicating Shakespeare was simply wrapped in a shroud rather than buried in a casket. 
 
 “It was a great honor to be the first researcher to be given permission to undertake non-invasive archaeological investigations at the grave of William Shakespeare,” said Colls. 
 
 “The amazing project team...has produced astonishing results which are much better than I dared hoped for, and these results will undoubtedly spark discussion, scholarly debate and controversial theories for years to come,” he added. “Even now, thinking of the findings sends shivers down my spine.” 
 
 Secret History: Shakespeare’s Tomb airs on Saturday at 8 p.m. on Channel 4.
– It looks like Shakespeare's skull really is missing from his grave. That's what an archaeologist has concluded after researchers were allowed to use ground-penetrating radar to scan the Bard's final resting place, Reuters reports. "We have Shakespeare's burial with an odd disturbance at the head end and we have a story that suggests that at some point in history someone's come in and taken the skull of Shakespeare," says Staffordshire University archaeologist Kevin Colls, who says the findings are "very very convincing" that the long-standing rumors of a missing skull are true. He tells Fox News that analysis shows the "odd, strange" disturbance at the head end of the grave is a sign "of material being dug out and put back again." Per those rumors, grave-robbers took the skull from Shakespeare's grave at the Church of the Holy Trinity in England's Stratford-upon-Avon in 1794. At the time, trophy hunters believed a person's genius would be apparent in his skull. Rumors also claimed that Shakespeare's skull might be hidden in a sealed crypt at another church nearby, but Colls' team investigated and found the skull there was that of a woman in her 70s. The team also discovered that Shakespeare was buried in a simple shroud, not a coffin, and that he and his wife were buried in shallow graves, not a deeper family vault as had been believed, Newsweek adds. Researchers, who ignored a curse in Shakespeare's epitaph in order to do their non-intrusive analysis, present the findings in a documentary airing in Britain Saturday. (Click to see Shakespeare's entreaty for refugees, in his own hand.)