Archaeologists digging at Buddha's birthplace have uncovered remains of the "earliest ever Buddhist shrine".
They unearthed a 6th Century BC timber structure buried within the Maya Devi Temple at Lumbini in Nepal.
The shrine appears to have housed a tree. This links to the Buddha nativity story - his mother gave birth to him while holding on to a tree branch.
Its discovery may settle the dispute over the birth date of the Buddha, the team reports in the journal Antiquity.
