Hanging coffins: China's mysterious sky graveyards
Hanging coffins, as they're known, are found across a swathe of central China -- mostly in remote valleys to the south of the mighty Yangtze River, which flows from the Himalayan foothills to China's eastern coast.
The coffins rest in a variety of formations, sometimes barely visible from the ground below. They're lined up in the crevices in the cliff face, balanced on wooden cantilevered stakes, placed in rectangular spaces hewn in the rock face or stacked high up in caves like those Wong saw on his latest coffin-chasing expedition to Guizhou.
The oldest are said to be in the eastern province of Fujian, dating back 3,000 years. There's no clear reason why this practice took place.
Ancient literature from the Tang Dynasty suggests that the higher the coffins were placed, the greater the show of filial piety to the deceased. Others say the reasoning was more practical: It prevented animals from poaching the bodies and kept land free to farm.
New sites are still being discovered. In 2015, the People's Daily newspaper reported that a total of 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.
"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," the report said.
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