article_snippet: (CNN)Chinese relic experts claim that a 1,000-year-old mummified monk encased in a Buddha statue was stolen from a village temple in Eastern China in 1995, state media reported.
article_snippet: The Cultural Relic Bureau in Fujian province launched an investigation and found photos and historical records suggesting a statue belonged to a village temple where The Cultural Relic Bureau in Fujian province was worshiped as an ancestor.
article_snippet: The Cultural Relic Bureau in Fujian province will continue the investigation and report to national cultural authorities to seek repatriation in compliance with normal procedures, a spokesperson told the state-run Xinhua news agency on Sunday.
article_snippet: We thought it would be lung tissue, but instead We found little scraps of paper covered with Chinese characters," said Vincent van Vilsteren, an archaeology curator from Drents Museum in the Netherlands.
article_snippet: The mummy was found sitting on a bundle of cloth covered in Chinese inscriptions, revealing The mummy identity as a Buddhist monk called Liuquan who may have practiced "self-mummification" to prepare for life after death.
article_snippet: The process of self-mummification is a known tradition in countries like Japan, China and Thailand, and was practiced more than a thousand years ago.
article_snippet: The elaborate and arduous process includes eating a special diet and drinking a poisonous tea so the body would be too toxic to be eaten by maggots.
article_snippet: The few monks that were able to successfully complete the process were highly revered.
article_snippet: We suspect that for the first 200 years, The mummy was exposed and worshiped in a Buddhist temple in China ... only in the 14th century did they do all the work to transform The mummy into a nice statue," said van Vilsteren.
highlights_snippet: Chinese relic experts claim that a mummified monk encased in a statue was stolen .
  
highlights_snippet: Researchers believe a mummified monk encased in a statue practiced "self-mummification" 