Story highlights Scientists say they've found the burial place of the influential author

Miguel de Cervantes died in 1616

(CNN) "In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd," wrote Miguel de Cervantes, the Shakespeare of Spain. And the quest to find his remains has sometimes seemed both, even (dare one say it) quixotic in a time of recession. But forensic scientists have persevered, and appear to have triumphed.

Almost 400 years after Cervantes' death, a team led by Francisco Etxeberria announced Tuesday that they were confident they had found Cervantes' coffin in the crypt of the Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians in the Barrio de Las Letras (Literary Quarter) in Madrid. Historical records indicated Cervantes had been buried there, but the convent had been substantially rebuilt since. (Etxeberria, incidentally, performed the autopsy on former Chilean President Gen. Salvador Allende, confirming he had committed suicide.)

At a news conference in Madrid on Tuesday, Etxeberria said that while there was no mathematical proof or DNA test available to completely verify the findings, there were "many coincidences and no discrepancies" in the examination of "Osario 32," a common grave in the crypt that contained the remains of 16 people.

"We have Cervantes, represented in some form in this group of bones that are unfortunately very degraded and very fragmented," Etxeberria told national television.

The search for Cervantes' coffin -- using radar -- began last year, funded by the Madrid City Council. It first mapped more than 30 burial cavities in the walls and nearly 5 meters beneath the floor of the church. Mass spectrometry dated fragments of wood and cloth found in these cavities to the 17th century, an encouraging but far from conclusive development.

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