Buddha statue with mummified monk is museum draw

A Buddha statue is displayed at the Natural History Museum in Budapest March 4, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

A Buddha statue from China that conceals the remains of a monk who turned himself into a mummy almost a millennium ago is the centerpiece of an exhibition in Budapest.

Visitors to the popular "Mummy World" exhibition at the Natural History Museum see a golden statue of a sitting Buddha, about four-foot (1.2-m) tall. On a television monitor, they can see the skeletal remains of the mummified monk inside it.

The traveling exhibition from the Drents Museum in Assen, the Netherlands, is on display until mid-May, when it will go to Luxembourg.