'Self-mummified' body found in statue of Buddha

zwiebel

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When Drents Museum in the Netherlands had an ancient statue of a Buddha scanned, there was a surprise. It contained a skeleton experts believe could be the remains of the revered master, Liuquan, who died around 1100 BC. This is a very rare and unusual find.

Another surprise awaited the experts however - there were no internal organs remaining, just thousands scraps of paper with Chinese characters written on them. They suspect this could be a case of self-mummification. The statue's currently on display in Hungary.

My note: For the life of me, I can't understand how someone can mummify themselves. I don't know if I've just read it wrong because it's in French. If anyone reads the language properly, let me know if I have!

ETA: Link: http://www.lefigaro.fr/arts-exposit...omie-d-un-moine-camouflee-dans-un-bouddha.php
 

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http://io9.com/the-gruesome-and-excruciating-practice-of-mummifying-yo-1515905564

This is a good article on self mummification and how monks eat a special diet for many years to prepare .

Thanks, excellent article!

Best I can understand, the monk was successful in his self-mummification attempt and eventually devotees removed his organs and inserted the paper prayers into his body cavity before building the statue around it.

"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.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/27/asia/mummified-monk-statue/
 

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