Multiple theories exist regarding why ancient communities did this
Different cultures have a whole host of burial rituals, but one tradition in China has continued to fascinate people.
A lot of things influence burial traditions, but one discovery made by a drone in China has sparked a whole host of questions about a burial site.
The footage unveiled a slew of coffins made out of wood hanging on the side of a cliff.
Caskets are anchored on a limestone rock about almost 100 feet up the side of a cave in Guizhou province in southwestern China.
While this is a peculiar find, it isn’t a particular new discovery, as it has been known for a while that some communities in China have done this in the past.
However, the drone footage has helped highlight the scale and apparent difficulty communities would have had to go through to hang these coffins from cliffs.
Hong Kong-based explorer, Wong How Man, has been obsessed about the oddly-placed graveyard, and has travelled across China in search of more of these sites of unusual burial custom.
According to a CNN article, he said: “At first, it was simply how the hell did they get there and then I couldn’t stop thinking about why. And there’re so many theories.”
Hanging coffins are found across much of central China. They are mostly in remote valleys to the south of the mighty Yangtze River, which flows from the Himalayan foothills to China’s eastern coast.
One of the theories regarding why this burial custom takes place is based on ancient literature taken from the Tang Dynasty.
It suggests the higher the coffins were placed, the greater the show of filial piety to the deceased. However, other theories suggest this method prevented animals from poaching the bodies and kept more land free to farm.
Another theory argues that this became a practice due to the fears surrounding flooding, meaning that graveyards that were essentially higher up on the sides of cliffs had little chance of being impacted by the floods.
Even now, new sites are still being discovered.
Back in 2015, a report by the People’s Daily newspaper stated 131 hanging coffins were discovered in the central province of Hubei, placed in man-made caves in a cliff 50 meters wide and 100 meters high.
The report noted: “Experts haven’t figured out how ancient people managed to transport the coffin, body and funeral objects – together weighing hundreds of kilograms – to the cliff caves,” adding an eerie element to the tradition.