New Delhi: There are mysterious hanging coffins one can see from the mountain cliffs in Gongxian, Sichuan province of China.

The hanging coffin was the most widespread form of burial in ancient southwest China. However, the practice ended with the mysterious disappearance of the Bo People.

Those who came after knew them from the hanging coffins and the paintings they left behind like faint echoes on the cliffs. Their ancient flowering of culture like that of the Maya is no more.

Survey reports from the early 1990s show the county having a total of 280 hanging coffins. However in the past 10 years or so nearly 20 have fallen. The coffins were hung at least 10 meters above the ground with the highest ones reaching 130 meters.

It is believed that these coffins were left behind by the Bo people, believed to have died out 400 years ago.

The Bo differed from other ethnic groups in their burial customs.

Typically hewn from durable hardwood logs, their hanging coffins went unpainted.

The most recent hanging coffins were made up to about 400 years ago in the middle and later periods of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), while many of the earliest ones date back 1,000 years to the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

To date, the earliest hanging coffin was one found in the Three Gorges area, dating back about 2,500 years to the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC- 476 BC)

People keep questioning why did the Bo people bury their dead in hanging coffins? How did they do it? And why did the Bo people disappear?

Some believed the coffins must have been lowered down with ropes from the top of the mountain.

Some thought the coffins had been put in place using wooden stakes inserted into the cliff face to be used as artificial climbing aids. Others felt that scaling ladders were the answer.

There are stories that these coffins are definitely closer to God, one way or another.

But these bizarre hanging coffins have baffled people for centuries in southern China.

Each coffin is made from a hollowed out single tree trunk and was originally protected by a bronze cover.

‘People say that the hanging coffins prevented bodies from being taken by animals and also blessed the soul for all eternity’.