Granada, Spain - More than 70 years after one of Spain's greatest poets was shot dead at the start of the country's 1936-39 civil war, a team of experts Thursday began opening mass graves one of which is believed to contain the remains of Federico Garcia Lorca.

The team led by archaeologists was cleansing, measuring and placing signs on the site in Alfacar near the southern city of Granada, sources at the Andalusian regional government told the German Press Agency dpa.

The opening of a total six suspected mass graves was expected to last at least two months.

Lorca is believed to have been shot dead by militia loyal to dictator-to-be Francisco Franco whose uprising sparked the civil war.

It was not clear whether the exhumation would clarify the circumstances of the poet's death, as his descendants oppose it and may not want to make the findings public. (dpa)