Longhu Mountain, located in Yingtan City, Jiangxi Province, is the birthplace of Taoism and has been shrouded in a mysterious color since ancient times.
Especially with the Dragon Tiger Mountain embedded in the cliffs, when viewed from a distance like a huge unfolding picture scroll, the two hundred and two hanging coffins are closely linked together, shaking off the yellow earth that has been sealed for thousands of years, and when they enter the world's vision, they add a mysterious atmosphere of time and space intersection cosmic confusion to the Dragon tiger mountain.
The Dragon Tiger Cliff Tomb is located on the smooth cliff, below the abyss, in the face of such a dangerous geographical environment, how did the ancients put the coffin into the cave? What is the identity of the people buried in the cliff tomb? Why did they use the cliff cave as a burial ground?
Behind the heavy suspense, what kind of civilization form is hidden? In order to solve this "mystery of the hanging coffin of thousands of years", the Longhushan Tourism Bureau even spent decades and offered hundreds of thousands of prizes to collect cracking methods from the world's able people.
Many people may wonder, what is a "hanging coffin"?
The so-called "hanging coffin" burial method, also known as cliff burial, is not simply to put the entire coffin on the cliff, but an important funerary method for the ancient ethnic minorities in the south who sent craftsmen to place the coffin in advance on the cliff that had been chiseled into the stake or in the natural cave of the cliff.
There are also many hanging coffin groups in the southern region of China, and the hanging coffin group on longhu Mountain, located in Yingtan City, Jiangxi Province, as the birthplace of Taoism in China, is a typical example, on the slippery cliff wall, hundreds of hanging coffins are scattered in a staggered manner, under the hanging coffin is turbulent water, the water is deep and unpredictable, from a distance, the coffin group is quite spectacular.
As early as 1978, Jiangxi Province set up an archaeological team to carry out a series of studies on the hanging coffin of the Longhu Mountain Cliff Tomb.
After one plan after another was established and overthrown, and with the volunteers of several local medicine farmers who often climbed the cliff to collect medicine, the archaeological team finally decided to explore the scene in the cliff cave by means of moso bamboo and a shelf.
After climbing to the cliff wall, the medicine farmer brought out some jars and broken pieces in the thirteenth cliff cave with more hanging coffins, and these things brought out by the medicine farmer were immediately sent to the cultural relics identification center by the members of the archaeological team for professional identification.
Soon the identification results came down, the hanging coffin of the thirteenth cave is most likely a family hanging coffin, its owner is living in the Spring and Autumn Warring States period that has a history of more than 2600 years, living in the current Longhu Mountain generation, encountering water and safety, choosing water to live, and burying according to the water.
Although the identity of the person in the cliff cave has been cracked, and the scene inside is no longer mysterious, but deeper questions have also followed, and the place where the coffin is placed is surrounded by unusually steep and slippery stone walls, above which is the peak of Dragon tiger mountain, and below is the water surface and valley that is tens of meters or even more than a hundred meters from the water surface.
So in ancient times, when the level of production was backward and the productive forces were not developed, how did the ancients place these coffins as light as three hundred kilograms and weigh thousands of kilograms on such a high cliff and remain unchanged for a thousand years?
Under the thinking and experimentation of the archaeological team, there is still no answer to this question. In 1997, Longhushan Tourism Group took out 300,000 yuan as a reward to seek solutions from the society.
Under the heavy reward, the world's elite gathered to respond, everyone opened their minds, have come up with a way to crack, the letter received by the tourism bureau has not been broken, bulldozer law, water rise law, geological change said... For a while, there were many opinions, but it always seemed to be a little bit worse than the reasonable explanation, until the tour group raised the bonus to 400,000 yuan, and did not receive an accurate and reasonable answer.
In order to further explore the answer and unveil the "mystery of the hanging coffin", the relevant departments once again set up relevant groups to visit the people and consult the folk masters, just to find a trace of clues. After in-depth investigation, the members of the group finally got a little enlightenment from an old farmer whose ancestors had lived near Longhu Mountain for generations.
In 1989, Professor Lu Jingyan, who was in charge of ancient mechanical research at Tongji University in Shanghai, developed a method modeled on the ancient hoisting method on the basis of the references and the "fixed pulley" mentioned by the old farmers, which was recorded in the last week, and personally commanded the field operation in Longhu Mountain, using a fixed pulley to lift a coffin weighing 200 kilograms to the mouth of the cave, and then the person in charge of hoisting found the right time, and successfully pulled the hanging coffin into the cave entrance for safe placement. The success of this experiment caused quite a stir at home and abroad at that time.
However, not long after the experiment was carried out, some people raised a new question - there are so many hanging coffins on the cliff wall, why there is no trace left on the peak of Longhu Mountain at the top of the cliff to fix the pulley, even if the wind and sun weather the traces left by the weathering and erosion, it is impossible to be so clean.
Could it be that the ancients, who lived more than two thousand years ago, had more advanced technology than modern times, allowing Gollum to move freely on the top of the mountain without leaving a trace? Although the mystery of the hanging coffin has a solution idea, it seems to be getting more and more confused, and the puzzle solving activities can only continue to develop in depth.
In 2013, the mystery that had been traced for decades was still not solved, and the Longhu Mountain Scenic Area Tourism Group even raised the bounty to one million yuan, proposing to publish papers in provincial newspapers and universities; there were letters of recommendation or signatures from at least two researchers related to ancient culture studies; and the arguments put forward in the paper were in line with the productivity characteristics of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods and were practical.
The on-site command staff to operate these three requirements, to the world at home and abroad to ask the following questions - how the coffin was put on the cliff? Why did they choose a cliff burial? If the answer, once successful, stands the test of scrutiny, the bonus will be paid.
From the Great Wall that has stood for thousands of years to guard peace, to the Forbidden City, which is made of falcon structures without a single steel and nail, to the hanging coffin of Dragon and Tiger Mountain, which has not been cracked although it has cracked the direction, the wisdom of the ancients has always amazed the world again and again.
In the face of the history of the development of civilization for five thousand years, we have too many mysteries to solve, in front of the ancient architectural relics that amaze us, in addition to curiosity and exploration, the rest is just admiration!