CT scan reveals mummy inside 1,000-year-old Buddha statue

Researchers have discovered the only Chinese Buddhist mummy available for scientific research — and it was found inside a 1,000-year-old Buddha statue.

A CT scan of the statue revealed the mummified body of the Buddhist master Liuquan, of the Chinese Meditation School. Liuquan is believed to have lived around the year 1,100 C.E. And the scan kept on giving: In the mummy's abdominal cavity, there were papers printed with ancient Chinese characters, rather than organs.

"The discovery of the mummy is of great cultural significance, not only because it is the only one of its kind, but so far the only Chinese Buddhist mummy that is available in the West for scientific research," the Netherlands' Meander Medical Center, where the scan was conducted, said in a statement.

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The mummy is a boon for historians, but what's most interesting about the find is the way the mummy was created. Researchers at the Netherlands' Drents Museum, where the statue was displayed last year, believe Liuquan may have undergone "self-mummification," poisoning and starving himself until he was buried alive shortly before death.

Researchers took samples of the mummy's bone material for DNA testing, and the findings will be published in a monograph about Liuquan. The mummy is on display at Budapest's National Museum of Natural History and will travel to Luxembourg in May.