Strangest Mysteries of the World and Beyond !

The Hanging coffin

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The Hanging coffin 

The Hanging coffin is a unique Chinese funerary custom that began in the 8th century BC. As the name suggests, families would place the deceased into wooden coffins and hang them on the side of cliffs.

Although no one knows exactly how or why the hanging coffins came to be, there are various hypotheses about their origins. Most commonly, they are attributed to the Bo people, an ethnic minority who resided in Matangba, China.

The Bo were an ethnic minority people living astride the borders of modern day Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. There they created a brilliant culture as early as 3,000 years ago. The ancestors of the Bo helped the Western Zhou to overthrow the ruling Yin at the end of the Shang Dynasty.

The Bo differed from other ethnic groups in their burial customs. Typically hewn from durable hardwood logs, their hanging coffins went unpainted. The most recent hanging coffins were made up to about 400 years ago in the middle and later periods of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), while many of the earliest ones date back 1,000 years to the Song Dynasty (960-1279). To date, the earliest hanging coffin was one found in the Three Gorges area, dating back about 2,500 years to the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC- 476 BC).

The hanging coffin was the most widespread form of burial in ancient southwest China. However, the practice ended with the mysterious disappearance of the Bo People. Those who came after knew them from the hanging coffins and the paintings they left behind like faint echoes on the cliffs.

The bodies secured within the coffins constructed totally of wood are believed to be the original workers and engineers of China's infamous Silk Road. The coffins are mainly clustered around Matangba and Sumawan where some 100 coffins are hung on the limestone cliffs to both sides of the 5,000-meter-long Bochuangou.

Survey reports from the early 1990s show Gongxian County having a total of 280 hanging coffins. However in the past 10 years or so nearly 20 have fallen. The coffins were hung at least 10 meters above the ground with the highest ones reaching 130 meters.

The hanging coffins were once a hot topic among architects, paleoanthropologists, folklorists and artists.

Some believed the coffins must have been lowered down with ropes from the top of the mountain. Some thought the coffins had been put in place using wooden stakes inserted into the cliff face to be used as artificial climbing aids. Others felt that scaling ladders were the answer.

Why did the Bo people bury their dead so high? Li Jing writing during the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) offers a clue in his Brief Chronicles of Yunnan. "Coffins set high are considered auspicious. The higher they are the more propitious for the dead. And those whose coffins fell to the ground sooner were considered to be more fortunate."

Also, some chairs can be found dangling alongside the coffins. It is said; those who could not afford a coffin used a chair, instead. The recently deceased was tied to a chair, and then was lowered down from the top of the cliff by a rope.

There are other locations associated with this marvel scattered in Sagada, It is located 275 km north of Manila, Philippines.

These ancient relics definitely continue to baffle us till today.