A Chinese road crew, working on a highway in eastern China, has found an approximately 700-year-old mummy of a high-ranking woman from the Ming Dynasty, which is famous for restoring the Great Wall, building Beijing’s Forbidden City, and establishing the first trade contacts with countries such as Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands.

The woman was lying in a wooden coffin roughly 61⁄2 feet beneath the surface of the earth, and the body is so well preserved that even eyelashes, skin and hair are intact. Her traditional Ming silk and cotton dress and shoes appear to be almost new. The woman, who is believed to have been between 50 and 60 years old when she died, was just under 5 feet tall, and she wore a ring on her right hand’s middle finger — an indication that she belonged to a wealthy family. There were also pottery and texts in the coffin; two other coffins nearby contained practical things for the afterlife, such as coats, skirts, hats, shoes, pillow covers, bronze coins and an ear cleaner.

Why the woman is so well preserved is scientists’ biggest question. The mummy was covered by brownish groundwater when the coffin was opened, and archaeologists think that it may have functioned as preservation liquid. The Ming Dynasty had extremely skilled mummifying experts, and scientists hope that the new find will reveal more about their methods.

The woman, who measured just under 5 feet tall, is thought to have been 50 to 60 years old when she died. The wooden coffin that held the mummified body was found submerged in water. The water may have helped preserve her.