This proverb compares those misers or stingy people to coffins and refuses to give anything to others.
Few people know what a coffin looks like, even experts in literature and history.
A few days ago, when I went to Langqi Island in Mawei District for an idyllic investigation, I found two Song Dynasty cloud coffins unearthed on Longtai Mountain, a branch of Jiulong Mountain.
Last year, I heard Mr. Liu, president of Longtai Village Association for the Elderly, say: 1954 During the period of agricultural mutual assistance and cooperation, villagers dug up four coffins from the depths of the ground when building a reservoir in an alpine canyon, and later dug up more than 10.
Because no one knew who the owner of the tomb was at that time, the villagers dared not touch the coffin, and later they did not know where they had lost it.
After more than 60 years, no one cares, and the coffin on Longtai Mountain has become a mystery.
According to the clues provided by the elders in the village and the clues of the legendary coffin, I went over the mountains and mountains in Longtai Village several times, but I didn't find it after much trouble.
In the spring of March, Mr. Liang, the former party branch secretary of Longtai Village, went back to his hometown to visit relatives from the United States and invited me to a party in Longtai.
When some old friends got together, I said, "Longtai is famous for horses. I also heard that thousands of coffins have been unearthed. I wonder where they are scattered? " Knowing that I like archaeology, Mr. Liang said, "I know where this' treasure' is. I won't tell him about it for fear of being stolen. Since Lao Yang wants to study this' treasure', I will take you to see it. " Under the leadership of Mr. Liang, we climbed the muddy mountain road under the tomb and finally found two ancient coffins that had been unearthed for a long time in a mysterious place next to Longtaishan Reservoir.
I was overjoyed, and everyone moved it out to take pictures of me.
These two long coffins are not big, much smaller than ordinary wooden coffins. They are ceramic coffins made of clay, one for men and the other for women. They are well protected. Their surfaces are rough and khaki, and they are not glazed. There are still white ash and loess on it.
The coffin lid and the coffin are bonded together into a whole, and there is a hole in the middle of the coffin lid. It seems that the ashes were put in through the hole, and there seems to be black ashes in the coffin. It is not known whether there are funerary objects in it.
Each coffin weighs about 20 Jin.
The male coffin is about 50 cm long, 20 cm wide and 24 cm high. The hole in the middle of the coffin cover is rectangular, the size of a cigarette case, the bottom is flat, the head is curved and tilted forward. There are two doors engraved on the turning head in front of the coffin. The female coffin is slightly shorter than the male coffin, 5 cm wider than the male coffin, and the bottom is concave. The hole in the middle of the coffin lid is oval, the size of a goose egg, and two doors are carved on the head.
These two coffins were dug up in the same tomb, and they were husband and wife coffins.
It seems that the small coffin unearthed can be compared with the hanging coffin in Wuyishan.
According to the memories of the old people in the village, during the Great Leap Forward of 1958 commune, the villagers built a reservoir here and dug up a white porcelain coffin and a ceramic "golden urn" containing ashes. I don't know where it is now.
These two coffins were dug up from the edge of the reservoir when the reservoir was repaired five or six years ago and have been stored in the mountains.
It seems that this place is a group of ancient tombs. Graves are deep, mostly under reservoirs. It's been a long time. It may be the ancient tombs of the Song Dynasty.
We also found bare ceramic "golden niches" in several broken ancient tombs in this canyon.
The old man in the village said, "This canyon is named Tali, so it is named because there are stone pagodas here in ancient times.
This stone tower may be a tower for storing ashes. The mountain opposite the "tower" is called "monk Li", which was named after the monk temple in ancient times, and there is an ancient kiln site beside the mountain.
It is said that in the Song Dynasty, ancestors believed in Buddhism, and cremation of remains prevailed on the island, so there was a coffin dedicated to burning ashes in a tile kiln, and a bone storage tower was set up, and the coffin came into being.
"Tali" is a treasure trove of geomantic omen, so the ashes of ancestors and monks are buried in coffins or "golden niches" here, forming a large group of ancient tombs, and so many coffins and "golden niches" have been unearthed.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, coffins were submerged by the long river of history, and now they are rare and rare cultural relics.
According to cultural relics experts, half of the ancient tombs in the Song Dynasty are cloud coffins or ceramic "golden niches". Although these two cloud coffins are not dated, they can be determined to be the cloud coffins of the Song Dynasty from the age of the ancient tomb and the shape of the coffins.
The unearthed coffin provides material data for studying the history of Langqi Island and the ancient funeral reform.