When the water levels were lowered in an eastern China reservoir due to a renovation project, no one was expecting to find a 600-year-old Buddha statue.

A local villager in Jiangxi province first spotted the half-submerged head of the Buddha sitting against a cliff and gazing over the water.

A hydropower gate renovation project in the Hongmen Reservoir, Nangcheng County, was responsible for the 10-metre drop in the water levels.

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Xu Changging, head of the provincial research institute of archeology, said the sunken statue, which is 12.5 ft (3.8 m) tall, could date back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

Researchers also uncovered rectangular holes carved on the cliff which could point to an wider, uncharted archeological discovery. A base of a hall was found under the water, suggesting that a temple could have existed there.

Sonar equipment and underwater photographs will be used to get basic data for further research.

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The reservoir is located on the ruins of the ancient Xiaoshi Township.

Xu told the CNN that the statue was so well-preserved because it was submerged in water.

The reservoir, also known as Zuixian Lake, was built in 1958 and has a water storage volume of 1.2 billion cubic metres.