Bo Hanging Coffins
Some of the cliffs from which the coffins where "hanging".  The only ones you can see in this picture are at the very top of the cliff face on the right, just under the overhang.  Most of the cliffs the people chose had overhangs or were angled in, to protect the coffins, which were made of wood.  They were made out of a single piece of wood, which was then smoked, to help protect it from the elements.

They believe the coffins were placed by lowering the coffins on ropes down from the top of the cliff.  The other theory was that scaffolding was built from the base of the cliff, but there was no evidence (post holes and such) found.  The whole thing is really quite remarkable, when you consider that people were suspended on ropes (or something) and lowered down the cliff faces to carve the holes for the posts.  Since the cliffs angled in, they would have had to somehow hang onto the walls.  After placing the posts, they would have lowered the coffins, which weighed several hundred pounds and placed them on the posts.  The post holes in the cliffs indicate that there were hundreds of burials.  I assume that some sort of system was worked out over time -- possibly using something resembling the rings climbers use today.
There has been very little archaeolgical work done there (there was a study a few years ago).  And I don't have access to it.  But you do.  So, anyone with access to a large library and some extra time, feel free to look this up.  The Chinese name is Xuenguan.  It's in Sichuan province.  There are also some on the Yangtze.  They started flooding it a few days ago.
I didn't know how to say high-resolution scan, so this isn't so good.  However, from close examination of the actual photograph, it appears to be a man with a spear(?), a horse-like animal and, uh, some other stuff.  I'll look the picture again.  The paintings were made with cinnabar.
The folks at the photo scan place lent me their Adobe Photoshop install disk.  They're really nice.  I played around with the picture and this is the best I have been able to come up with so far.  The program is in Chinese.
The main wall.  I think the coffins were placed about 1000 years ago.  All the black squares you see are holes where posts once supported coffins. 
A small circle with an "X" through it.
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