The incident occurred on November 4 when the Wang family discovered a coffin while they were doing some road maintenance works. Mr. Wang said his house was constructed some 20 years ago, and he remembered he did not dig very deep for the base of the house, and he had never heard of old coffins being buried in the area.
On the morning of the incident, Mr. Wang hired a digging machine and started working for about an hour when they struck a tablet that covered the coffin which did not bear any inscriptions.
At first, Wang thought it was just an ordinary coffin. According to local customs, he was about to relocate it somewhere else with good Feng Shui. But when they opened the coffin, they found parts of the corpse were still intact, and one could still see the facial features quite clearly.
Local authorities were alerted to the find, but even village elders had no clue about the coffin. The estimate is that it had been there for several hundred years. Eventually, it was decided that the incident should be reported to the heritage department.
The villagers were told to preserve the coffin and wrap it in plastic sheets awaiting the arrival of experts to determine its historical value.