How did the ancients put heavy coffins on the edge of cliffs in the so-called "hanging coffin burials"?

The question is an interesting one. After all, will be so heavy coffins up to hundreds of meters in the air for burial, is not an easy thing, so the ancients will play what kind of wisdom to solve this problem?

(1) Why Hanging Coffins

1. Geography

Most of the hanging coffins are found in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River or near the coast, where the climate is humid, and the coffins will rot and decay if they are buried in the earth. Furthermore, the coffins are kept away from the ground so that the remains are not disturbed by wild animals. Therefore, in order to preserve the bones of their loved ones intact so that the deceased can rest in peace, the ancients utilized their ingenuity and opened the hanging coffin burial.

2. Avoid war

The earliest record of hanging coffins was in the Three Kingdoms period, when due to the frequent wars if the implementation of burials, tombs will inevitably be disturbed by the war, or stolen or destroyed, in order not to make the departed loved ones to be disturbed again, so many people buried their loved ones in the cliffs to avoid the scourge of war.

3. Spirituality

In the minds of some ethnic minorities, placing the coffin in a high place seems to be more conducive to approaching the heavenly realm of the heart, in order to let the soul rise above the sky faster and shelter the descendants, so many people choose to place their bodies in coffins after death and hang the coffins above the high mountains.

(2) The system of hanging coffins

The so-called hanging coffins is the practice of placing the coffins with the corpses on top of the cliffs, which is in fact a kind of cliff burial and one of the commonly used burial customs among the ancient ethnic minorities in the southern region of China.

In Wuxi County in Chongqing, 274 coffins have been found, including the most typical group of hanging coffins in Wuxi Jingzhuba, which are distributed on the side of cliffs 100-400 meters above the river, with 24 coffins in existence. Most of these coffins are arranged in groups, resting directly on the narrow and long platform of the rock wall, with the rocks protruding above, forming a natural rock shelter to protect them from the wind and rain.

These coffins are made of whole pieces of nanmu dug out of the wood, and the lids and bodies of the coffins are knocked together with letters and mortise and tenons, which are relatively crude.

The weight of the hanging coffins, according to the archaeological site visits, Jingzhuba 18th is the smallest of them, ? The actual weighing 80 kilograms, if together with the two bodies and burial objects, the total weight is definitely not less than 150 kilograms?

(2) the method of hanging coffins

How the hanging coffins will be lifted to a high place, in fact, the academic community has long been studied, to the Department of Archaeology of Sichuan University for the hanging coffins of the results of the investigation, which puts forward a four-point idea.

One is to zero into a whole, that is, beforehand in the bottom of the cliff on the coffin is divided into several parts of the coffin lid, bottom plate, coffin plate, and then transported to the cliff, and then assembled on the cliff molding, and then send the body into the coffin.

The second is transported on the cliff, that is, directly to the coffin containing the body hanging on the cliff, some coffins have ears, holes. Some frontal cliff top edge is retained traces of the cow's nose hole, may be to facilitate the lifting of the coffin.

Third is the horizontal cliff, that is, in places where there are horizontal laminations to form rock crevices, you can walk along the rock crevices, direct transportation of coffins.

The fourth is the use of Mengliang ladder, that is, on top of the wall artificially cut square stone holes, one after another, from top to bottom to form ? The? Then wooden rods were inserted into the holes, like steps, on which people passed and carried.

Summary: hanging coffins rising method, is indeed a mystery, and in different areas may be used in different ways, the implementation of specific programs largely determined by the local geological conditions.