Suspending Coffin Introduction

<p style="float:left" "=""><img src="/UpFiles/2011/12/31/014119998.gif" _cke_saved_src="/UpFiles/2011/12/31/014119998.gif" alt="Suspending Coffins" hspace="10"></p> <p>On the cliffs of famous Yangtze River Three Gorges and Mt. Wu Lesser Three Gorges, there are numberless suspending coffins, including single coffin, group coffins, and some of them look like wooden boat, some look like bellow and so on. In the past, there was a sentence very popular that "there are some coffins on the Three Gorges Daning River cliff, with rich treasures in them, but it is hard for people to get the treasures". Are there some treasures in the coffins? How people put the coffins at there? Nobody knows. It was a mystery for thousands years. But now, the Three Gorges suspending coffins' mysterious veil will be uncovered.</p> <p>Base on the research, the suspending coffins on the Three Gorges and Lesser Three Gorges can be divided into two kinds. The first one is putting the coffins in a natural cave which is on a certain height over the ground (commonly over 10 meters). The second one is putting the coffins in the cliff caves which were chiseled by people. In 1979, Professor Xiang who was from Sichuan University got a suspending coffin from the Daning River cliff. According to research, this coffin is a wooden suspending coffin of Ba Kingdom period, which is over 2000 years to now. This coffin is 2.1 meters long and made up of good quality nanmu which with delicate texture and strong water resist ability. The cave which used to put the coffin located on the cliffs of gorge river, where the sunshine duration is very short (about one or two hours a day). The inclination degree of the cliff is 20°, where will not accumulate water, the wind can come in and out easily, rain can't come in and rarely people can reach. So, until now, the suspending coffin is well protected and without damage.</p> <p>But how these coffins were put on the cliffs? According to research, there are two ways: the first one was recorded in historical data that in ancient, after the old people died, the later generation will "use all one's property to make a coffin for the dead, and chisel a cave on the river bank cliff to put the coffin. Then fix a string on the mountain foot to locate the coffin. The coffin is higher which means the later generation is more piety to the eldership". The second one is to build road and chisel cave along the cliff, then to burial the dead in the cave. For fear of others to steal things from the cave and damaged the cave, so they damaged the road. The third one is to put up a shelf at the mountain foot and use the pulley to send the coffin into the cave. After works done, removed the shelf.</p> </div>