After a few days, the day of departure finally approached, Lao Lin took me and the big head Gu Guangming, Gao Tong and the archaeological professionals who were silently seconded to participate in it, plus a few faces that we are not very familiar with in 083, and the group is also huge. The border area between Liaoning and Inner Mongolia is only a few hundred kilometers from Beijing, and it was not yet noon when a few cars loaded everyone and set off early in the morning and drove into a small town called Dongsan Gouzi.

Everyone stayed in an arranged hotel and waited unhurriedly. In the sparsely populated small town of western Liaoning in winter, the streets are exceptionally cold, the wind and sand and the temperature are very low, a few of us simply stayed in the house for an afternoon, and only met with the relevant local units after dinner, as we imagined, they cooperated with 083 in the early stage of the work efficiency is very high, not only sent the provincial archaeological institute to study the Hongshan culture authoritative level Professor Zhang and his assistant, and prepared a detailed plan for this archaeology in advance, when it comes to "archaeology", I secretly feel a little funny, Almost every time 083 pretends to be archaeology, in fact, it has to play a role greater than the destruction of tomb robbers.

This time, the site of the "excavation" is a mountain canyon about 30 kilometers away from Dongsagouzi Town, because this area is one of the important birthplaces of Hongshan culture, the local cultural relics protection work has always been regarded as the focus, the measures are very rigorous, and there is no tradition of tomb robbery in the local area, so there is basically no phenomenon of illegal excavation. In particular, it is a group of tombs on the high cliff wall of a deserted canyon, and most of the nearby villagers do not know that there is such a place, which was only recognized as part of the Hongshan cultural site more than ten years ago, and is almost untouched.

Speaking of which, "hanging coffin cliff burial" was originally an ancient funeral custom of ancient peoples in some parts of the south thousands of years ago, and it is very rare to appear in the north suddenly, and the hanging coffin itself has many historical mysteries, which has covered this trip with another mysterious color, and it makes people feel a little hairy when they hear it.

In fact, for 083, there are two reasons for putting the focus here at the moment, one is that according to some discoveries and records of the local cultural examination department, the characteristics of Hongshan culture are very obvious, and the other reason is more direct, that is, Li Fern and their frequent activities in that area, 083 adopted a method of doing the opposite, Li Fern hopes to startle the snake and let 083 expose the position of the "door", and 083 in turn aims at Li Fern.

Because the principle of only protection and not excavation has been maintained over the years, the information that the cultural relics department can provide is very limited, but it shows that this kind of hanging coffin burial is carried out on a vertical steep cliff, borrowing a naturally formed cave and artificial excavation, and placing a wooden coffin in the cave, as for the formation date, it can be traced back to the Hongshan culture period five or six thousand years ago. It is said that in the early years, local villagers once went down to one of the caves closest to the top of the cliff and found a coffin stored inside, but it was almost empty except for the dry bones of unknown age, which further discouraged the idea of someone stealing these hanging coffins.

Early the next morning, the team all rushed to the scene, there was no ready-made road to go in the barren mountains and mountains all the way, the off-road vehicle arrived at the side of the canyon that went east and west and could no longer drive in, the rest of the way can only rely on walking into the valley, there is a river in the middle of the canyon, from the width of the riverbed it seems that the water is abundant in the summer, and now it is the dry period of winter, and you can only see the small puddles of ice frozen into ice in the river valley intermittently. Walking along the valley, the passage in the valley is sometimes wide and sometimes narrow, and the sun is blocked by the mountains on the left and right, although it is a little cold, but it does not cater to the north-south wind direction, there is no biting cold wind, and you can't feel how cold it is in the middle of the canyon.

It is not the first time that Professor Zhang of the Provincial Institute of Archaeology has come here for a field trip, this time he sent an excavation task, not only curious about what kind of puzzles are hidden in the hanging coffins of those cave walls, but also feel that this kind of excavation no matter how rigorous it is, it will also destroy the intact historical relics.

Walking down for more than half an hour, I didn't feel a little out of breath, and a layer of sweat appeared on my body, as a towering cliff on the left approached, Professor Zhang, who had gray hair, couldn't hide his excitement, pointed far away with his hand, turned back to us and said: "The cliff in front is the hanging coffin burial group, in the whole north, except for Shanxi, this is the only place." This canyon was originally called the wolf cub ditch, and the mountains on both sides of the hanging coffin vaguely had the form of Shuanglong confrontation, and it was named 'Shuanglong Ridge Hanging Coffin' according to this at that time. ”

The assistant brought by Professor Zhang was named Chen Xu, and when he heard Professor Zhang's excited tone, he immediately piled up a slightly flattering smile on his face, and added: "This is still named by Professor Zhang himself after it was confirmed as a Hongshan Cultural Site." ”

Everyone nodded in agreement, I thought in my heart that the sincerity of this name is not very good, it is vulgar, it is better to call the wolf cub Zigou hanging coffin. Following behind everyone while looking up and pacing to the bottom of the cliff, I saw Gao Tong take out the compass to look at feng shui at some point, and he was comparing it back and forth in his hand, which made me a little dizzy.

When I got to the bottom and looked up, I saw that on the cliff like a knife and an axe, dozens of caves of different sizes were dotted, concentrated in the middle of the cliff wall that was more than 100 meters high, there was no law to follow, according to Professor Zhang's previous statistics, from top to bottom, a total of 48 large and small caves, it is estimated that the lowest position is more than ten meters away from the bottom of the valley where we stand, and the highest cliff cave is afraid that it is close to hundreds of meters.

The hanging coffin group observed on the spot is much more intuitive than the empty introduction of a few people when they met last night, and being under the cliff of the black pressure will bring people a gradually strong sense of oppression, which makes people naturally feel low and small, I don't know if the ancients hung the coffin high in such a way to express their awe of the ancestors.

Although Professor Zhang and Gao Tong have not personally participated in the excavation of the hanging coffin, they have a certain understanding of the hanging coffin. The hanging coffin is widely distributed in the southern region, the most famous are two, one is in the Wuyi Mountains of Fujian, the other is at the junction of Sichuan and Yunnan, the age of the hanging coffin and the burial system adopted in various places are very different, the boat-shaped coffin in Fujian can be traced back to the early Spring and Autumn Period, but the Sichuan servants are rectangular coffins dug out of the whole wood, and the majority of the Yuan and Ming dynasties.

Anyway, to a layman like me, it sounds like a few hanging coffins have nothing to do with each other, and they all take such a form of funeral, but you talk about your rules, I have my rules, but one thing is the same, this kind of hanging coffin appeared in ancient times, it must be a huge consumption, it must be the consumption of the nobles, and there is nothing to do with the poor.