Mummified Monk Found Inside A 1,000-Year-Old Buddha Statue

The Meander Medical Centre in the Dutch city of Amersfoort has treated many senior and aged citizens, but none nearly as old as the 1,000-year-old patient who came in for tests and a checkup in early September 2014.

Researchers brought a statue of the Buddha that was made a thousand years ago and was on loan to the Drents Museum in the Netherlands to a modern hospital in the hopes that modern medical technology could solve an old mystery. Inside the gold-painted figure was a secret: the mummy of a Buddhist monk who had died while sitting in a lotus position. The statue was shown outside of China for the first time. It was the highlight of an exhibition at the Drents Museum, which had 60 human and animal mummies from all over the world.

10 The statue was sent for restoration

After 1,000 years, the statue was taken to the Drents Museum in the Netherlands to be restored. Researchers soon discovered the mummified remains of a person inside the statue. The statue seemed to be a mere shell encasing a mummified monk. But it wasn’t until a group of researchers and scientists did a CT scan that they realized the mummy was missing organs.

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9 The hospital called the mummy their “oldest patient ever.”

To know more about what the hospital called its “oldest patient ever,” the Chinese statue was carefully placed on a gurney for doctors to examine. Buddhist art and culture expert Erik Bruijn, a guest curator at the World Museum in Rotterdam, supervised the whole examination. Ben Heggelman, a radiologist, slowly placed the mummified monk’s body into a high-tech imaging machine for a full-body CT scan and took a bone sample to test for DNA. Reinoud Vermeijden, a gastroenterologist, took samples from the mummy’s chest and abdomen using an endoscope.

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8 Paper scrolls were found in place of the monk’s organs

The CT scan revealed that the monk’s organs had been taken out and replaced with a bunch of paper scrolls. Ancient Chinese characters were written on the scrolls. This helped the researchers discover the origins of the mummified monk. It was found to belong to Liuquan, a Buddhist master of the Chinese Meditation School.

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