Why Are There Ancient Coffins Hanging From China's Cliffs? | Mysterious Hanging Coffins | Timeline

one of the great privileges of working at history here and making films together with our team at timeline is the access we get to extraordinary historical locations like this one stonehenge i'm right in the middle of the stone circle now it is an absolutely extraordinary place to visit if you want to watch the documentary like the one we're producing here go to history hit tv it's like netflix for history and if you use the code timeline when you check out you'll get a special introductory offer see you there [Music] in the remote hills of southwest china these coffins clinging perilously to cliffs contained the key to the mysterious tribe known as the beau people annihilated in a bloody massacre 400 years ago who were the bow why did they hang their dead on cliffs and how did they do it is it because as legend tells us they could fly now a scientific journey is underway to solve an archaeological mystery to separate fact from legend and to uncover the secrets and perhaps the very face of the beau people [Music] on the other side of this remote ravine perched hundreds of feet above the riverbed is one of the greatest mysteries in all of china the hanging coffins of the beau people the beau tribe have become legendary for their phenomenal habit of burying their dead in these impossible vertical cemeteries [Music] when i first visited i was strictly coming in as an explorer with a sense of trying to discover something that perhaps the rest of the world don't know realized that hey here's something that is unique and mysterious as someone from the 21st century to even imagine remotely that hundreds of years ago a thousand years ago these people here were able to pretty much freehand climb these cliffs putting a huge weight on the cliff face this is unthinkable the bow were wiped out in the massacre by the ming dynasty in the 16th century they left no written records and the only remaining clues to this extraordinary tribe are their precarious hanging coffins how man has sent an expedition team to gather new evidence about the hanging coffins and the beau people their customs and traditions did any of the bows survive the massacre do the bow have living descendants today the focus of the expedition is here some fifteen hundred miles from the major city of beijing in northern yinan in southern sichuan the heart of what was once beau country [Music] archaeological investigators from the china research and exploration society along with our film crew are first heading for one of the most spectacular coffin locations ever found dosha [Music] the clear fat doshaquan is over 700 feet tall and wedged in the crack right in the middle is a cluster of wooden coffins no one has ever managed to reach these coffins the expedition team is eager to climb the cliff and see what clues lie inside leo hong is the explorer whose job it is to get everyone up to the coffins of the expedition it's very difficult to study this coffin size you need huge amounts of funding and you have to take a lot of safety precautions so over the years there hasn't been a great deal of research on the coffins nice rhythm nice rhythm before ji shipping can even think about getting to the coffins he must first sent liu hong and roger graham the safety officer to check out the route even crossing the river is a challenge it looks peaceful enough right now but flash floods are frequent in these remote mountains of vienna okay would be oh i can see uh i can see one of the coffins there so i'm gonna go up here [Music] and then cut across there it doesn't look too bad from here but [Music] shall we have a look [Music] the reason i joined the expedition was to find out who put this hanging coffin up there what's inside who did they belong to these questions are all part of the mystery and greatly intrigued me [Applause] another hey leah come here for a sec how you doing this way it's not so steep let's have a look but even for experienced climbers with modern equipment this is a hazardous route let alone for g-shipping and the other researchers they're not going to get up here why uh roger harry it's it's seriously loose and it's gonna be lethal if i go much further if you don't have the equipment with you then don't don't attempt to climb it i think we turn around because i can go but if i fall because of a loose rock it's going to be death but somehow the bow people managed to scale these heights with no climbing equipment and carrying a 500 pound coffin the difficulty in getting a coffin up there seems insurmountable given the terrain it's very crumbly it's very steep it's very high i don't know how they did it um safely i mean they might have lost a few people along the way uh i don't know whether it mattered back then but i would say that it would be extremely extremely difficult and dangerous the beau people were able to achieve this amazing feat during the ming dynasty today our expedition team failed to find success they must head for a new coffin site deeper into the mountains thanks guys thanks for the trip [Music] how on earth did the bow manage to hang their coffins 300 feet up the side of a sheer cliff over a thousand years ago [Music] i'm always very inquisitive and of course the first question asked was how how did they do it you know how can they put up these hundreds of pounds coffins stylistically there are a number of different ones but still the lower part is stuck up from one piece of wood one one piece of timber which means that it will be very heavy no one knows exactly how the bow managed to heave this great weight halfway up by sheer cliff some say they waited until the rivers were so high they could just float up fathers the only solution is that the bow people could fly a thousand years ago all that was available to the bow was an axe hammer and chisel wood rope and manpower somehow with these simple tools they managed this extraordinary task what is clear is this the beau afforded great honor and care to the handling of their dead [Music] [Music] our ancestors have a saying treat the dead as if they are still alive they believe the dead person has simply moved to a new place and that they will continue their daily life once they reach the other side wearing clothes eating and drinking so you have to provide them with their day-to-day items in the coffin these burial items show that the bow were very advanced in agriculture they knew how to produce silk and very fine linen by cultivating silkworms these costumes are directly modeled from the clothes found on bow corpses the coffin is authentic as well the skills to make these items can be readily found in rural china today but what no one has accomplished in over 400 years is to get a 500 pound coffin up to the top of a cliff [Music] [Music] i think the method of hanging varies from region to region for instance in matang ba there are holes found at the bottom and from the pattern you can tell they probably have created the zhang tao which is some narrow footway perched on packs winding up the cliff then they just carry the coffin up from the bottom another method mentioned in the archives was to send someone up there first then attach ropes to the coffin and pull it up [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] the team from changhan village testing one theory of how the coffins may have been hanged used only the materials thought to be available to the bow it took 12 people three days to recreate this theory but for the beau this epic funeral ceremony would have been a routine event [Music] [Music] [Music] there are still many coffins dotting the landscape of southwest china they could reveal many clues about the mysterious life and death of the bow how men's team is driving further into the remote northern corner of myanmar the roads get rougher the convoy winds slowly through the rough terrain proceeding at a walking pace having failed to reach the coffins at doshar guan the team is hoping for greater success in the valley of long ma their search may yield more clues to this mysterious and uncharted region this is the end of the road the entire team must now walk the last few miles to this new and unexplored coffin site there have been rumors about the existence of hang coffins at long mar for quite a long time but because of the remoteness of the location and the transport problems no one from outside has ever been there before we don't know what we're going to find of course it's very exciting to be the first ones there with a chance to solve some mysteries a chance to review this mysterious phenomenon to has already visited the site to organize the building of some scaffolding i was very excited because the hanging coffins were so high up on the mountain cliff we could only see them from afar they were very very mysterious although it's a long march to long ma once they get there reaching the coffins should be a whole lot easier than dochaguana [Music] um [Music] after a two hour walk the team finally reaches longma home to a few dozen villagers in sight of an unexplored burial ground of the bo people uh [Music] scattered along the length of the cliff there are seven caves which could contain coffins and skeletons of the bow um now it is just a matter of time the scaffolding is already well under construction built from bamboo in the same traditional style used in china for several centuries but even when it's complete the scaffolding will only reach some of the caves on the longman cliff xi jinping has decided to send climbers to some of the more inaccessible caves even with modern climbing equipment getting into these caves is difficult and dangerous see if you can click [Music] hanging down has proved impossible the only chance of getting into the caves is to haul himself up [Music] [Music] foreign do you see anything in the cave it's fairly deep so i'm not too sure what it's in there i'll turn my headlamp on and have a look there's a piece of wood here that seems to be uh it looks like it's put in as a witch but also maybe where the coffin was sitting on can you take a small piece of wood for us yes the way it's been chiseled it fits in the rock like a jigsaw puzzle we found wooden and stone supports but no coffins whether they never got round to installing the coffins in the first place or whether they were damaged due to vandalism we don't know but one thing is for sure those caves have signs of human activity at one time within living memory there were over 12 coffins sticking out here at longman for the archaeologists their hopes of solving the mystery are now pinned on the one remaining coffin in the highest of the caves i think the most fascinating question is not how they do it but why they do it my suspicion is that it has to be something very spiritual [Music] as chinese we are not used to seeing coffins exposed we consider something very important and sacred and here these coffins are all open to the elements the vast majority of the chinese population are han people originally from the north of the country but there are still over 50 minority ethnic groups in china with 24 concentrated in the mountains of yunnan throughout china death the funeral ceremony and the worship of ancestors are all of great significance different tribes have different ways of showing it the ideal place for a hand tune is in the ground on the side of the hill overlooking the living this combination is thought to bring good fortune to the descendants [Music] what is surprising about the hanging coffins is that it is the complete opposite perched up in the air ungrounded and separated from the living family this reveals a lot about the bose world view according to guajing an expert on the minority tribes of china hanging coffins generally appeared where there are rocks and rocky places have special meanings for many tribes some view mountains as a stairway to heaven believe that the spirits of the dead ancestors lived in heaven then maybe the hanging coffins were a bridge between this world and the next a stepping stone between the living and the dead [Music] the bow wrote nothing down about why or how they hung their coffins but the ruling hand people kept diligent records of the entire ming dynasty hidden in this chronicle of china are a few clues about the beau people and their coffins professor lin xiang has been studying the hanging coffins mystery for over 30 years he believes it came about partly for practical reasons and partly through spiritual belief how do you answer the people after death the human soul will rise up to heaven to make this journey easier you needed to bury your dead high up on a cliff so the soul will be closer to heaven the other reason is more practical they wanted to protect their coffins from being defiled by enemies or wild animals so they put them out of reach i think these two factors of practical need and spiritual belief came together and that's how the custom of hanging coffins began [Applause] [Music] so most of our information about the bow comes from where they died but there are a few locations high in the mountains where we can discover something about how they lived [Music] one name given to the beau people is dotien which means fight the sky they not only defied gravity with their hanging coffins but they would fly in the face of any adversity they thrive in terms of taking nature as a challenge to an extent that there is a story that circulates that they would make themselves wear very thin clothes in the winter and whereas in the summer they would wear very heavy overcoat just to have that challenge what remained for me and as well as others to see is within the former territory of the bold people we find these remnants of their past [Music] this is one of the beau people's most legendary mountain strongholds ling shao the castle in the sky they were always being attacked by the army of the ming dynasty so they would find a suitable mountain with good natural defenses and then fortified with walls and gates so that they could defend and protect themselves mountain top forts like this were a unique part of bull culture the castle in the sky is like a lost world it lies largely untouched hidden and unexplored is one of the first academics to set foot here there are still plenty of relics here one is the fortress gate also you can clearly see the stoves the bold people used at that time to cook food on and also underground tunnels with holes for observation so they could see who was coming in at the top of the winding path past the fortifications there is a plateau where the bow people retreated to in times of trouble safely nestled in the clouds the one man who lives here now built his house with stones from the tumbledown bowl buildings his water comes from their well [Applause] this is the greatest collection of unexplored evidence about the life of the beau people according to the locals here every year on june 19th the descendants of the bull people come here to light incense and pay respects to their ancestors so june 19th might very well be the day when the beau people in lingxia fort were defeated [Music] the defeat at ling xiao was a bitter blow to the bow people but they still survived a hundred miles away another mountaintop saw the last bloody stand off the bow the biggest battle took place here in jill mountain behind me in the late 16th century forty thousand bow people were slaughtered in a gruesome massacre by the hand the troops at the ming dynasty were tightly encircled around the mountain and cut off the supply of water and food the mean soldiers laid siege for ten days biting their time waiting for the day of a big bow festival the bow was singing dancing and drinking a lot in the end after a great celebration they were all drunk the ming troops took the chance and using the mountain paths attacked the mountain from all sides [Music] this was the most brutal and intense fight after this battle the ball people were almost wiped out the beau have achieved a magical mythological status in china many who live under the shadow of the coffins especially the older villagers have legends to tell them huh there are many tales of the beau people flying it's not surprising when you see where they lived and how they bury their dead but history and legend are both subject to bias perhaps the truth of the bow will only emerge through archaeological exploration of their hanging coffins at last the scaffolding is ready ji sha ping and liu xu are ready to climb up to the last remaining coffin at longman oh it's a 300 foot climb but at the top of a rickety bamboo scaffold archaeologist liu xiu finally gets the chance to get close to a bow coffin sequencer we found the coffin here to be unique because it is made from a single block of wood personally i believe that these coffins with this kind of curved lid and a rough manufacturing style are possibly from a very early era the only way to accurately determine the age of the coffin is by carbon dating but liu xi believes that this coffin could come from at least the tang dynasty it could be over a thousand years old this would make it the oldest coffin in southwest china all they need to find now to make this a complete hall is a bow skeleton and there is one cave left to explore [Music] it seems that no one has ever climbed up here before success at last the coffin from this cave has rotted or fallen away but a valuable scattering of ancient human bones remained on the floor of the cave looks like a rebel oh decides to head deeper into the cave [Music] it's like scar oh we're almost accompanied [Music] i consider this to be a highly important sample for our research the skull is especially important because it will give us lots of information about the ethnic origin of the body okay there's the rest of the skull here the jaw because of the absence of barrel articles it's hard to identify the age of the skeleton to do so we have to carry out a carbon dating test but we can tell it is of medium height likely to be a male 1 the rest is hard to tell it needs facial reconstruction expertise and i think if we want to identify the ethnic origin of the corpse our primary means will be to use dna analysis this precious 1 000 year old skull could be the clue that finally reveals the mysterious identity of the bold people [Music] many scholars believe there must have been some survivors of the bow massacre at jose mountain during the exploration at long ma'a there were many rumors of both descendants living nearby in particular members of a family called her who live in denial of any connection to the hanging coffins it is inconceivable that all the bull people were killed in one go even now there is a full crime in gong county yo families from the lee tribe ban families from the meow tribe her family is from the hanging on cliff tri this is a legend that tells us that the people with the name of her are the descendants of both people a few hours from longmar hidden in the mountain mist we track down these people their family name is her after much conversation they agreed to talk to us about the possible connection with the bow could the rumors be true could this be the face of the bow [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] the ones mighty bow have been reduced to a few small clusters living in denial of their mysterious and unique history assimilated at last as the han always wanted we don't know if this hula family are true descendants of the bow [Music] but 21st century science might solve this thousand-year-old mystery and prove the identity of the bow once and for all [Music] the skull found in the cave in longma has been brought here to kwaming the capital it will be analyzed using the very latest dna techniques and to discover if there are any living bow descendants i think it is reasonable to suspect that there will be some surviving people that has integrated or assimilated into the local areas uh we have even heard of some kind of a uh ancestor worship ceremony that is done after midnight and only the male members are allowed to go so i definitely think that modern science has something to contribute is a specialist in the analysis of ancient dna this is kind of joint effort between geneticists and archaeologists so this kind of project can provide a lot of information about the cultural history of the asian populations we assemble the the bones from the field and then we get the bones to the left and then we need to clean the bones because there are contaminations from the environment and contaminations from people who are handling the symbols these are the same techniques used to identify the victims of massacres found in mass graves where there is no other means of identification but with ancient bones it's much harder to extract the dna getting asian dna is not an easy job first of all you need to find the site and also whether you can get dna it depends on how well the dna preserved subin has spent the last few years gathering dna samples from different ethnic groups all over china and asia he has built up a massive database showing the genetic makeup of hundreds of different tribal minorities there is a lot of discussions as where these people come from and who are their ancestors so by doing genetic analysis we'll be able to compare the genetic structure between the asian population and the current populations it's a slow process this is the first skull to be tested it could take months or years to extract enough dna to determine if there are any living descendants of the bold people for a truly conclusive result subbing will need the dna from 20 different bow skulls early indications from the dna analysis suggest that at least one of the surviving tribes has links to the bow but that's not all our skull from longma can tell us by using modern forensic science we can build a sneak preview of the ancient bow by building up layers of muscle tissue and skin on a model of the skull facial reconstruction technicians have created this bowhead this is the long-lost face of the middle-aged man who spent the last thousand years resting in the cave at longma this is the face of the bow [Music] this scientific and archaeological journey has unlocked many secrets of the mysterious bo people but there is still much to learn at sumawan alone there are over 90 coffins that no one has studied this is heavily stacked up if some of those beams down below it's not secured well it can just have a whole avalanche because there are 11 of them right up here one above each other i think the only way to really get close to them and conduct any research and conservation will be to build an entire scaffolding like a whole facade the beau people left an astonishing legacy clear for all to see they may have disappeared but the symbols of their culture still cling defiantly to the cliffs of southwest china reaching up closer to heaven ever since i start studying these coffins i figure in my mind that i may have one new option for where i want to be after i die besides being cremated or buried i could be hanged too perhaps who knows one of these days i may be among them being part of the mystery [Music] you

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, hanging coffins, sagada philippines, hanging coffins of china, echo valley, ancient coffins, ancient china, chinese history, chinese bural rights, chinese burial traditions

Id: xcJIliCylJg

Length: 52min 44sec (3164 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 24 2021