Where did Gravestones Originate?

One or two generations can remember the graves of their loved ones, but three generations later, it is not clear, especially after migration and war, I do not know where the gravestones are. 

How to solve it?  According to the survey, people come up with many methods.  In the beginning, people were inspired by the wooden piles used to hold the coffin ropes when the dead were buried. In front of the tombs, wooden poles and bamboo poles were inserted, and fiber materials (such as paper or silk) were tied to indicate the date and time of the deceased's birth and death, which was called "Mingjing "(or" Mingjing ").  But it was easy to damage, so people tried another way: instead of wooden garden pillars, the rich and the poor carved on the stone pillars the names of the deceased, the time of birth, and the rank of the official.  

In order to carve its shape and evolved into a square, rectangular, began to be buried in the tomb or outside the tomb, referring to the housing construction, the top of the Gravestones with the monument cap, decorated with moving, plants or landscape patterns, the body of the monument engraved on the resume of the dead.  It indicates that he was buried alone with his wife, concubine, son, daughter, etc.  Attached with carved yinzhai (tomb) geomantic geographical location orientation.  (indicated by heavenly trunk and earthly branches).  The middle class may be marked by a medium Memorial Gravestones , while the poor may be marked by a small stone tablet with a name, or a clay brick tablet, or some kind of evergreen tree.  

Thus, Granite Gravestones are gradually transformed from practical articles into cultural works of art, and their functions, forms, textures and decorations are also more diversified.  Celebrity tombstone more pay attention to the stele body with high quality stone such as hua Gang rock, marble, the top of the monument has a statue of the dead or in the center of the monument inlaid with the porcelain of the dead.  The tombstone became a "badge of honor" and decoration to record the family lineage and deeds of merit and virtue of the deceased.  This is very in line with the Chinese people to honor their ancestors, benefit the future generations, immortal social customs.  

In order not to be affected by wind, rain, sun and other natural erosion and man-made damage, they put the tablet table stand outside the tomb, epitaph and inscription buried in the tomb.  Gravestones prevailed in the Han and Tang dynasties and later became the norm.