A STONE coffin containing a mummified body was lifted from a grave yesterday, more than 1,600 years after it was buried.

Archaeologists said the body had been so well preserved that it might be possible to make out its facial features.

The late-Roman coffin was uncovered by contractors carrying out development work on a car park in Mill Mount, York, for Shepherd Homes.

Experts believe gypsum may have been used to preserve the body because inside the coffin was a white substance which had acted on the body in a similar way to mummification.

The body might also have been wrapped in a binding sheet or clothed, but the face may have been uncovered, meaning it could be possible to make out its features.

After being removed from the grave yesterday, the coffin was taken to be x-rayed and analysed. It will eventually go on show at the city's Yorkshire Museum.

Archaeologist Mike Griffiths said: "It is amazing how this sarcophagus, and the burial in it, has managed to survive as well as it has.

"It has brought everyone together, client, contractor and archaeologists, to produce what we expect will be a fascinating opportunity to study this burial in great detail, maybe actually come face-to-face with one of our ancestors."

More than 40 examples of this form of burial rite have been reported in York, more than any other Roman settlement in Britain, but few have survived or been scientifically studied.