Experts seeking out the remains of Miguel de Cervantes are considering the possibility that they are in the final phase of a truly quixotic nine-month quest to solve the mystery about where the Spanish poet, playwright and novelist was buried.

The author of "Don Quixote" was laid to rest in 1616 at the Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians in Madrid's historic Barrio de las Letras, or Literary Quarter.

However, the exact whereabouts of his grave within the tiny convent chapel is still a mystery.

According to The Associated Press, a team of archaeologists and anthropologists on Saturday are beginning their excavation work after having identified three unrecorded and unidentified graves in the chapel's crypt.

The bones there will be exhumed and analyzed.

Almudena Garcia Rubio, who leads the excavation project, explains, said if they do not find Cervantes's remains in those places, then there are still other possible locations to excavate.

Cervantes is a mystery, and someone whose influence continues to be seen.

He is the inventor of the modern novel as well as the post-modern novel.

His masterwork, "The Prince of Wits," both extols and lampoons the pleasures and duties of chivalry. In the film "Man of La Mancha," which is inspired by Cervantes's "Don Quixote," Peter O'Toole sings about dreaming the impossible dream.

If someone calls you “Quixotic,” it might sound like a complement, but at best, you’re being called an idealist – at worst a fool.

Cervantes is even part of that “23 enigma” as he and that other mystery man of letters we know next to nothing about about William Shakespeare are supposed to have died on the same day: April 23, 1616.