In the long history of mankind, there was a mysterious cliff burial custom in ancient China, which was popular among some ethnic groups such as Pu, Yue, Ba, Liao and Han. Under its influence, there were cliff burials in Longan County, which disappeared mysteriously after the Yuan Dynasty. Because there is no written record, the cause, process and result of cliff cave burial are still a mystery to us modern people, and these monuments are even more confusing and mysterious.
The earliest time of discovery of cliff burial in Longan County was 19 17, and the location was halfway up Baling Mountain, about 100 meters south of Buwengtun, Longmin Village, Du Jie Township. The entrance is about 40 meters from the ground and the direction is northeast.
What is cliff burial? Cliff burial is a custom of burying human remains in cliff caves or cliffs, and it is also a kind of wind burial. It is an ancient burial method popular in ancient southwest minority areas, including hanging coffin burial and cliff burial. The cliff burial found in our county belongs to cliff cave burial. This way of burial is to place the deceased in the natural cliff hole on the cliff. Under the cliffs, when we look up, we can usually see wooden coffins with bodies. For this kind of coffin hole, sometimes it needs to be slightly trimmed, mainly by filling the bottom of the hole or adding wooden poles, with the main purpose of better placing wooden coffins.
1958, three youths, including Zheng Nannan in Buquan Street, climbed the Wangya Cave to find nitrate soil (fertilizer). This cave is 10 meter deep and about 4 meters wide. They accidentally found 18 wooden coffin in the cave. There were _ wooden mats under the coffin, which were placed on both sides in a figure of eight, with the head facing inward and the tail facing outward. There is a relatively large coffin in the cave, and two people are buried together, and the coffins on both sides are buried alone, and the coffins are reduced in turn. Because some local people reported to their superiors, Huang Zengqing of the District Museum visited the site at the end of 1962 and found that all coffins and human bones had been pushed out of the cave and piled up at the foot of the mountain. The coffin was cut from it with a whole log, hollowed out in the middle to leave the child's mouth and the mother's mouth, and then combined. The craft is very fine, and there are almost no gaps. Some coffins protrude forward 13- 14 cm, slightly bent like a horn-shaped wooden handle, with the wooden handle facing upwards and the lid handle facing downwards. According to Zheng Nannan, most of the skeletons in the coffin of 18 are just one, and one of them is relatively large, including two skeletons and six "Gan Yuan Bao Tong" of the Tang Dynasty, a round turpentine block with a diameter of 5CM and a thickness of 2CM, and several porcelain bowls outside the coffin. Other coffins have no funerary objects. The size of the coffin depends on the height of the human skeleton, generally 67CM long, 34CM wide and 18CM high, and the smallest is as big as a pillow.
The coffins in other cliff caves are similar. The funerary objects generally include "Gan Yuan Bao Tong", "Kaiyuan Bao Tong" copper coins (the earliest in Sui and Tang Dynasties), porcelain bowls, wooden bowls, iron machetes, sharp knives, long hair and shells. In addition, there are no other graphics or text records.
In order to spend so much manpower, material resources and financial resources, the ancient Zhuang people hung coffins in cliff caves, which was determined by their economic life and religious beliefs. Archaeological data prove that in ancient times, due to low productivity, most ancestors of Zhuang people lived in caves. In their ideology, after death, people still carry on production and life like living people, and they also need clothing, food, shelter and transportation. Under the control of this idea, stone burial is linked with caves where human beings live.
Cliff burials in Guangxi have a long history, the earliest being the end of primitive society, such as the cliff burials in Bawangtun, a handsome village in Liangjiang Town, Wuming. Eight human bones were unearthed, including pottery, stone tools and jade, but no bronzes were found. The earliest carbon-14 dating of human skeleton samples is 3650 95 years ago. A batch of late Neolithic pottery, stone tools, jade articles and mussels were unearthed in Shan Nong Cliff Cave, Dengji Village, Huxian Town, Wuming County.
After the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Song and Ming Dynasties, and at the latest to the late Qing Dynasty, there was cliff burial in Guangxi, and the custom of cliff burial in Guangxi ran through various historical periods. The people who carried out cliff burial in Guangxi were the indigenous people in Guangxi, and the earliest was the Yue people, including xi 'ou and Luo Yue. Later, Wuhu people, Xiyuan people and Guangyuan people in Zuojiang and Youjiang river basins were all ancestors of Zhuang people. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were strong men in Donglan, Pingguo and Long 'an, and later there were Yao people.
Long 'an Cliff Cave Burial has a long history, and the mystery remains to be solved. Judging from the copper coins found so far, cliff burial should have occurred from Sui and Tang Dynasties to Yuan Dynasty, and then the custom of cliff cave burial mysteriously disappeared. Because there is no written record, I have to make the above guess. Coupled with the age, perhaps the people who used rock burial have left their original areas, and some people have disappeared from the historical stage, so these Millennium monuments have yet to be uncovered.