Afghan officials say renovation works on the grounds of the presidential palace in Kabul have led to the uncovering of skulls belonging to two bodies.

The Afghan presidential palace said in a statement Tuesday that the skulls and bones were found beneath a kitchen, without elaborating on the identity and cause of the death of the bodies.

The statement said forensic examination has begun on the remains while a commission, including representatives of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and Physicians for Human Rights, has been assigned to identify the bodies.

Reports say the commission has been set up by President Ashraf Ghani to investigate the case.

“The president has tasked a commission of forensic experts ... to examine the bodies and prepare them for proper burial in accordance with Islamic rites,” the statement said.

Similar findings of such bones in the past have mostly uncovered mass graves of unidentified victims of war in Afghanistan, with most of them former warlords. A mass grave containing about 2,000 bodies was spotted in a 2002 unearthing operation in the north of the country. Most of those bodies belonged to former Taliban militants who were reportedly killed in prisons after a US-led military operation ended their five-year rule in 2001.

Another mass grave was discovered in 2008 in which the body of Afghanistan’s first president, Mohammad Daud Khan, was found. The grave also had the corpses of 15 other victims, all of them assassinated along with Daud Khan in the presidential palace in a coup in 1978.