( 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 . The mummy made international headlines last year when it first showcased at Drents Museum in the Netherlands . The Cultural Relic Bureau in Fujian province launched an investigation and found photos and historical records suggesting the statue belonged to a village temple where it was worshiped as an ancestor . The bureau 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 . The statue , currently in possession of a Dutch private collector , was being housed at the Hungarian Natural History Museum as a part of a European tour . The museum announced on their website that the mummy , originally scheduled to be on display until May , has been pulled from the exhibition at `` the request of the loaning partner '' -- the Drents Museum . It 's unclear exactly when or how the statue made its way to a market in the Netherlands where a private buyer bought it in 1996 . Drents Museum said the owner , who prefers to remain anonymous , had bought it legally . The mummy was discovered when the owner brought it to an expert for restoration . But it was n't until a team of researchers and scientists did a CT scan -- a comprehensive three dimensional X-ray image -- last year , did they discover the mummy 's organs were missing . `` 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 . The mummy was found sitting on a bundle of cloth covered in Chinese inscriptions , revealing its identity as a Buddhist monk called Liuquan who may have practiced `` self-mummification '' to prepare for life after death . 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 . 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 . The few monks that were able to successfully complete the process were highly revered . `` 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 it into a nice statue , '' said van Vilsteren . Researchers are still waiting on DNA analysis results to help trace the mummy back to its exact location in China .
Chinese relic experts claim that a mummified monk encased in a statue was stolen . The statue was bought in 1996 at a market in the Netherlands . Researchers believe the monk practiced `` self-mummification ''