Coffin: Why is the coffin made of wood and not oth

　　 Everyone knows that after death, a person must be buried in a coffin. How did this custom for thousands of years come from? Why is the coffin made of wood instead of other materials?

　　 This starts with the evolutionary history of funerals. The ancients did not bury their relatives after their deaths, but "put them in the hands of the gully" ("Mencius·Tengwen Gong"), that is, they were thrown into the ravine. Later, "the thick clothes were paid for, buried in the middle field, not sealed or not trees" ("Easy, the second part"), that is, the corpse was wrapped with a lot of firewood and buried in a wide field. The mound was not sealed. Plant trees without leaving any iconic things.

　　 Only later did they start using the funeral equipment. According to archeologists' textual research, the wooden planks unearthed at Banpo site about 6000 years ago are the buried children of the little girl. Explain the beginning of the coffin.

　　 Why choose wooden coffins? People used sarcophagus at the time, probably because the sarcophagus was heavy, not easy to carve and move, and was eliminated. Pottery coffins have also been used. They are not easy to burn, and they are fragile and eliminated. Later, wooden coffins were used. Some experts believe that the use of wooden coffins is the result of the ancestors imitating wooden houses. This makes some sense. Some rural old people still call the coffin "wood house". Specifically, copper coffins and crystal coffins are only individual phenomena used by a few great men.

　　 Why is the coffin called the coffin? Some people say that the coffin is an "official" and the material is "fortune". People yearn for "being an official to make a fortune" so they call it a coffin. This explanation is close to nonsense. The explanation of "Shuowen Jiezi" is: Coffin: Guan Ye. So hide the corpse. Congmu, official voice. That is to say, the coffin fingers are closed and the wood used to hold the corpse. Material: Muying also. From the wood, only the sound. The so-called wooden stiles refer to wood and wood that are motivated and straight. The combination of the two characters means that the burial utensils used to hold the corpse are made of wooden planks (wood) that are straight and straight, called coffins.

　　 Nowadays, cremation is promoted, tree burial and sea burial are promoted, and coffin burial is no longer used. This is a major reform of funeral customs and a major advancement in social civilization.