The 2,200 Year Old Hanging Coffins Of Ancient China | Absolute History 

Seems light an camera don't work inside the caves 🤐🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣interesting

@Annie M 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

EVEN IN BAGUIO PHILIPPINES THEY ALSO HANG THEIR COFFIN ON THE MOUNTAINS " SOME THEY LET THE DEAD PERSON SITTING DOWN IN POSITION !

One can't believe the Chinese they are brought up to listen to the c. C p and must tell the story of what the Chinese government tells them to say.

@@davidpringle7262 Seriously? So you're saying that since these hanging coffins are located in China, that automatically means they don't exist because they're located in China. Not very logical.

Interesting conection! (maybe or just a parallel development)

interesting ...but youd think the weather would rot the wood over time and the body would fall out....???

@@maggiemay7028 The coffins could be made of hard wood which doesn't rot easily. Hard wood is quite durable & is common in the tropical South East Asian areas of Southern China & the Philippines. If I am remembering my geography lessons correctly.

@@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 heavy woods are quite heavy, so??

Ooo nice nice!

Amazing the wood has not deteriorated either.

It looked like they used the natural rock formations to their advantage. But still, HOW?!

@@christianrokicki very good wood

@Ellie5621 I don't doubt it!

that's what we should do now really ))

Whats the tribe called?

I think it might be because the speaker is a Chinese speaker originally? Her accent sounds slightly Chinese.

That’s probably because they’re both Chinese 🤣 Not because they particularly care about it. You also have to be specific when it comes to documentaries so you’re pointing out something pretty obvious.

🙄 so if you can’t pronounce something correctly you are being disrespectful?

@@NakitaCherie Yes because it means the person didn’t take the time to actually research the pronunciation despite doing a whole video on it. To actually respect a culture is deep diving on it and giving the most accurate pronunciation you can. Asian ppl usually have their names pronounced wrong everywhere everyday and it gets really tiring. I would know cuz Im half Asian

@@heartsDmise yeah but you can't expect people to use the right tones to pronounce your name of they don't have that in their own language. That's also part of pronounication. Also it doesn't matter if they say it wrong or with an accent. They don't do that on purpose

@CrunchyFrog - You may be onto something with that. The simplest, most obvious answer is usually the right answer. Everything you stated would be a challenge for inhabitants of that region. Historically, corpse disposition has always been a challenge. Just look at Europe during the plague for one example. They ran out of places for the dead and modified burials to accommodate the large number of interments. So, I can’t speak for everyone, but I definitely think what you said is highly plausible.

a strong hypothesis sir.

If that's the case, why not burn the bodies like in some cultures? The hanging coffin concept is most intriguing. The scaffolding may work, but to then bring hundreds of pounds of coffin UP the scaffolding seems impossible. Also maneuvering 20-60 stories high is a feat unto itself.

@@allisonmarlow184 burning bodies takes a lot of resources, also burning bodies is taboo in some cultures

Well thought out theory. Makes perfect sense.

Impossible to count, most didn't have any names, and further back we go more of them were living and then just were killed off or assimilated with no record of that.

Yeah so many cultures lost throughout time

So the question is: why do people from so-called civilized nations always try to assimulate these native tribes? Why not just let them alone?

Only today I've heard of hanging coffins in Sulawesi, Indonesia. There're also hanging coffins in Borneo (Malaysian state of Sabah). I haven't seen them but have watched documentaries

i think they hoist the coffin from land up above going down insead of from below going up.

There's evidence that Austronesian people migrated from central china to south east Asia.

@@fideso5944 sounds logical

It’s a tradition of Ancient Yue people, the people who cultivated rice, the shared ancestors between south East Asians and us southern Chinese !

The water was higher then, so they weren't as high up as they seem now

We made the same trip but forgotten in what year. It was indeed an amazing journey

Oooh, I'm so jealous! Lol! Not funny really because I AM jealous! What a trip of a lifetime, however, I would probably starve to death because I'm such a picky eater...Cheers and Peace

Because they have NO respect for the dead.

Because you’re less likely to damage the bones by grabbing with bare hands compared to gloved hands. Also because they had to bring everything into the mountain, it may be that they did not think to bring disposable gloves. Also some cultures see handling the dead remains of others as an honour and not as a bad thing (ie in America being a mortician is seen as a “bad” job, but in other cultures it’s a respectable one)

@@elenalizabeth what a wild statement.

They had good kung fu

@@liongrose1173 😂

@Altschauerberger Opferkult-Spiritist ya it makes sense, we don’t see countless coffins up there if it were for everyone

Very good point made. Unfortunately probably many died while placing those coffens like that.

Death positive? What is positive about death? As someone who lost my mother, there's nothing good I can say about it.

@@Marlaina I’m so sorry for your loss. The ‘Death Positive’ movement isn’t about being happy about dying, it’s just about believing that it’s not morbid to speak about death and how important it is to have open conversations about death and dying

True. And no truth to chinese being the progenitor of all things around the world.

When it was done (2200 years ago) makes the hanging coffins in Yunan special.

@@rider2731 In South America the Chachapoya tribe (known as The Cloud People) also did this with their dead, although they were mummified, and kept in fabric bags, inside stone containers. They look down on the gorge. Its very similar. They were contemporaneous with the Inca.

This documentary was filmed almost 20 years ago, before drones were widely available

Ooh! Aaaah!

@Pavan Kumar tradition, show of wealth, religion. People used to be bored

@Pavan Kumar i read somewhere that it has something to do with their belief. Something about they believe in the soul left for the sky or something else. I can't remember much, but something related to the sky and heaven as a symbolism.

Proud someone thinks it is OK to disrespect the graves of their ancestors? What do you think pride is, exactly?

@@Tofu_Pilot Define the words you attempt to use in sentences before using them. It will save face in the future. I can scientifically ensure with 100% accuracy that the Bo do not view this as disrespect. For one, the actions seen in this video are in no imaginable way "disrespectful". Not even close. Second, and this may be the most important fact... THEY ARE DEAD. After I die, there will not be a care in the world what happens to my body. Because as horrible as it sounds to most humans on Earth, dead is dead. No brain signals, no active nerves, nothing but decay and entropy. I'll tell you exactly what proud is. Proud is understanding the words I am about to use in a sentence. Proud is understanding the definition of disrespect. Proud is not going through life presuming everything due to the lack of critical thought. Trust me, the effort we had to make to ensure casket vaults are sealed and locked were FAR MORE disrespectful than exploring 2,000 year old burial sites. I still have nightmares. I know exactly what disrespect is and what it is not.

​@@Tofu_PilotArchaeologists disrespect graves for a living and I see no one complain about it. It drives me nuts when they crack open a coffin and start touching the bones and belongings. Leave them alone!

@@Marlaina yeah it's tough because if they don't some grave robber almost certainly will... but it disturbs me to. In this case though it's particularly egregious considering nobody is getting up there.

A conclusive DNA picture of the Bo people will take years to compile. DNA begins to break down from the moment of death. & over time much of the information can be lost due to this & other environmental factors. At best they may have only gotten a few broken strains of DNA from the skull. & it takes several individuals to get a complete genetic picture of a race/people. There's a great video here on RU-vid by Caitlin Doughty aka Ask A Mortician with some information about this subject. The link is below (hopefully) but just in case it doesn't come up. The video is called - *ASK A MORTICIAN- Dali's Exhumation, Amputated Limbs, Celebrity Graves* & the bit about DNA is at 4:23 hopefully this will answer your questions about DNA. m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xOXGmVrLWDg.html

@@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 and she

@@Ken-wu1ph ????? and she? Sorry but what does that mean?

@@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 sorry i think i clicked comment on my keyboard by accident 😅

@@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 I agree it will take a long time, but now a days science is getting DNA from the dirt on cave floors , and can tell differ animals and people who have lived in the caves for 10's of thousands of years. Seems a skull would be a great source of DNA comparatively to dirt.

That was my first thought but if you look under the coffins they are suspended on wooden pegs driven into the cliff face so they would have to have been down there to peg the coffin supports in which is pretty amazing

But it’s so high from the top, to the point where they wouldn’t see where it was going unless you had spotters all along the cliff. It’s possible but people would have died doing this

They showed on this vid how they cleaned the bones before getting the DNA.

Wow! What an interesting comment!

Thank you for sharing Philippe, you make the Internet worthwhile. 💕🤗

Exactly what I was thinking

I agree with you..

Either that, or the river levels were higher back then. Another possibility is that they waited for the river to swell from recent floods before they trekked to the burial sites.

That was my thought. I haven't finished watching yet but if they don't mention that I'll be shocked. That's gotta be it!

This has been a theory, in another video. Still doesn't make sense to go through all that trouble, when they could just bury them in the ground... Or just live on top of the cliff and let the bodies decompose at the base. It just makes no sense. Is it a disgraceful burial? Like they are stuck here?

the rocks didnt look like that 2000 year ago there worn away

@@RoseUnseen the water level dropped that much? Why in the side like that then? That makes the same amount of sense.

That's exactly what I was just thinking. It would seem to be much easier that way.

When this happens (i.e., in forensic analysis) it's usually quite simple to exclude DNA from individuals known to have touched the specimen. I'll agree though it's not the best way to approach such items.

Didn't know you were an expert archeologist! But that's just not how DNA works.

I doubt they will leave any DNA by touching. Usually, they use teeth to analyze DNA.

They even mention how they extract the DNA to avoid handling contamination

They explained at the later part of this doc that they clean the specimen before extracting the DNA. I personally wouldn’t want to handle bones with my bare hands but their handling of the bones wouldn’t affect the outcome.

I agree

No, no, no. That was my home. It's because the water table is so high - N.O. is mostly at, or below, sea level. Early burials found coffins and bodies floating after serious rains or hurricanes. Bodies had to be "buried" above ground. But you were on the right track. The truth was a little more gruesome.

It’s all about water tables in Louisiana! Seeing coffins crashing through even concrete casings due to Katrina hurricane , I can tell you it isn’t about “materials”. Many are buried/entombed in concrete across the US but most have their vaults buried not above ground due to water. Sky burials are not uncommon historically in US (Native plains tribes), Iranian Zoroastrians though. Then there are the cliff/cave burials in the Mesa regions of sw Colorado n canyon regions.

Water table

Zzz, It's practical but gruesome to think about.

You find history interesting now it seems...Im a 40 year WW2 historian, the scale of the conflict was over the entire planet....except for the US mainland which had no battles, the Pacific really fascinates me because the US Navy was spectacular in their 79 amphibious landings onto Japanese held islands and lands

@@woodystorey I think it’s because as much as we were taught “certain” history in America we know it was written by the victors and Sonia everyone’s history and what people are taught in their countries about other countries history and what they learn about their own isn’t to be trusted they learn when they find out native people still exist and that slavery of blacks continues on in 1900’s as they were arrested and then bonded out and a white man pays for their fine to keep them out of jail and they become indentured servants for sometimes years or until death. I was never taught that I was taught that after civil war blacks were in government and then some people in south had issues and they wanted a way to make themselves feel superior so they hired blacks to serve them make them use different toilets restaurants and sit on back of buses. But MLK stopped that basically and then we were all good. We weren’t taught the long term effects plus I was born in Indian reservation in anY on sovereign land and attend ian an Indian school then went to a white school that made me cry cause I was so confused on their lingo. But it’s cause we don’t know what history is real . We have to learn for ourselves.

If you aren’t “into history,” why try to come up with any theories at all?? If the Chinese archaeologists don’t understand these people after using their broad knowledge base, an understanding much more sophisticated than anyone from a Western European culture could, I’m more confused by your motivation than I am about the mystery of what the Ming dynasty would possibly have gained from slaughtering 40,000 nonviolent people who retreated that far from “civilization” so they could be left alone, in peace.

@@voraciousreader3341 Well, the short version would be the Ming dealing with the aftermath of the fallen Mongolian empire at the time. The longer version is the Yuan empire lasted from 1279-1368 after defeating the NanSong dynasty in the mid-1200s. The Mongolians ruled over the Han people for about 100 years. The Ming dynasty was founded based on the idea of restoring the former glory of the Hans ruling (Both the Tang and Song dynasty before Yuan were considered the wealthiest era of China's history). The Yunnan region had been under the rule of Hans in both the Song and Ming dynasties. But during the chaos of the later years of the Yuan empire( around the 1330s to 1380s or 70s, I can't remember exactly) different tribes in Yunnan and Sichuan region rebelled against both the Mongolians and Han Chinese. A few of them even declare themselves Kings and built up some small kingdoms and fought each other for control of the region since no one from the central government was able to stop them. Then finally, the civil wars in central states ended by the Zhu family and the Ming dynasty was established in 1368. One of the most important jobs for the new rulers was to reclaim the land that was lost due to the fall of the Yuan empire to show to the public that they are restoring the glory of the Han to ensure their ruling state was righteous. The newly founded strong army of Mings basically just told those rebelled states to choose to obey or die. Some did obey and some like the Bo people refused, therefore, the war happened. It took the Ming empire about 2 decades to fully restores order in Yunnan and Sichuan regions.

probably, as hk buildings are still using bamboo scaffolding to bring things up.

Sumatera island

Putting the baby inside the group t once happened in south Africa but back in the old days. My grandma told me the reason behind that...

Ancient secrets lost forever!?

In China, some surgeries are done without anesthesia just acupuncture to block the pain. I have seen a documentary on brain surgery with no anesthesia. The patient was awake chatting with the surgeons

Although very sad that we've "lost" the ancient knowledge, I do think it may have been done as a kindness to our modern world. With the entire world being consumed by greed, corruption, violence, anger and the need for self, imagine what additional suffering we would impart on this planet and each other if we still had the ancient knowledge.

Yes, it’s true. People use to be able to fly. It’s called super power lol.

@@Alamak2070 amazing

If true, wouldn't there be more wood block/steps left? Assuming the steps made from same material and driven into the rock the same way as the coffin mounts. I assumed they came down using rope instead of going up.

@@samdherring not necessarily. If they protected their coffins they may have only had temporary ladder poles, smaller put in. Or eroded... Many ideas but I still like mine. There's heaps of Chinese roads that were built with pokes sticking into cliffs so it isn't unheard of

It is amazing how with just the tools that were accessible at the time they achieved something modern technology can't.

It's likely that they uses ropes to hoist the bodies up before putting supports in, if that is so, they probably didn't have much supporting structure as the evidence would still be there, its unlikely mounting holes would be eroded away.

@@sterlingodeaghaidh5086 how do you figure the evidence would still be there? A thousand years of land shifts and weather erosion would not allow for such evidence. If anything it may just be a lack of stepping surface. It could have had a man made stair to such levels and the erosion could have eliminated it. But without evidence of how these were placed originally.. Anything else is speculation.

@@mom23js this is true, but the program does show evidence to the contrary and seeing how well the coffins held up, it could be assumed that any extra support structures not near the river within the flood zone would still be there. Plus holes that deep wouldn’t be eroded so quickly.

@Tabitha Zehr, a very good question

sagada mountain province its approximately 150 km from city of baguio.

Keep your faulty imaginations to yourself. Igorots have no chinese dna.

No. Baguio is the by-product name from mispronouncing the word 'Bagiw' by the Americans. The ibaloi tribe called their land 'Bagiw' which translate to 'moss' in English. The city name perfectly describe the cool and mossy forest of the place long time ago. I am from the kankanaey tribe co-inhabitant of the ibaloi tribe in Benguet. And my grandmother still to this day calls Baguio as Bagiw. She can not pronounce Baguio well as it is an Americanized name and she's used to calling it Bagiw.

@@samuelcortez7717 great share of info. Thanks.

Or well you know, it's incredibly remote and drones don't handle that well when you have cliffs, clouds, and foliage about. Imagine crashing one of any decent size into these things. Very likely they'd all come crashing down. So I suspect they may have existed, but they'd definitely not be the first choice... :)

These people lived in the valleys below the cliffs. They'd have to get up the cliffs with the coffins first. Before they could then lower them down again. Its much easier to haul them up by ropes & then deposit them into the caves. Or onto man made platforms sticking out of the cliffs. Then to take them all the way up to the top of the cliffs. Just to drop them half way back down again.