Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, has been “found” in a group burial crypt under Madrid’s Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians, the BBC reports.

His body has been buried there for nearly 400 years, researchers say, and his discovery marks a high point in a search that used radar and infrared scanners.

“The remains are in a bad state of conservation and do not allow us to do an individual identification of Miguel de Cervantes,” said forensic scientist Almudena Garcia Rubio to the BBC.

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“But we are sure what the historical sources say is the burial of Miguel de Cervantes and the other people buried with him is what we have found.”

Cervantes was 68 at his death in 1616. After spending most of his life as a soldier he was destitute and said to have had just six teeth at the time.

He wrote The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha in 1605 and Don Quixote in 1615, a year before his death.

In 1571 he was shot and four years later he was made a slave in Algiers for five years.

The convent’s order helped pay for his ransom to secure his release and he asked to be buried at the convent.