This painting was discovered at the Astana Graves, which was the main burial site for aristocrats of the Turpan region from the 3rd - 8th centuries. The two conjoined figures are Fuxi and Nuwa, a brother and sister who, according to a Chinese foundation myth, were the only survivors of a great flood. Charged with repopulating the world, Fuxi and Nuwa created vast numbers of clay figures, which they were able to bring to life with some divine assistance. The Turpan area was introduced to Chinese Han culture in its early history, so burial objects discovered in the region often display a strong Chinese influence. The iconic figures are outlined with clear brush strokes and colored with thick red and white pigments. They are depicted with human upper bodies, but their lower bodies are serpentine. They are holding a compass and a ruler (respectively), which are symbols related to the traditional Chinese understanding of the universe, in which Heaven is round and the Earth is square. Behind them are the sun, the moon, and various constellations, as a microcosm of the universe. The painting has several tiny holes along the edges, which are probably nail holes from when it was tacked onto a ceiling. The painting lacks detail, but the vivid colors and balanced composition make it a notable piece of art, while the subject matter makes it a valuable archeological artifact.

Materials : Silk Fabric - Hemp Fabric

Location : Central Asia

https://www.museum.go.kr/ENG/contents/E0402000000.do?schM=view&relicId=435

Fuxi or Fu Hsi (Chinese: 伏羲) is a culture hero in Chinese mythology, credited along with his sister and wife Nüwa with creating humanity and the invention of music, hunting, fishing, domestication, and cooking, as well as the Cangjie system of writing Chinese characters around 2900 BC or 2000 BC. He is also said to be the originator of bagua (the eight trigrams) after observing that there were eight fundamental building blocks in nature: heaven, earth, water, fire, thunder, wind, mountain, and lake. These eight are all made of different combinations of yin and yang, which are what came to be called bagua.

Fuxi was counted as the first mythical emperor of China, “a divine being with a serpent’s body” who was miraculously born, a Taoist deity, and/or a member of the Three Sovereigns at the beginning of the Chinese dynastic period. Some representations show him as a human with snake-like characteristics, “a leaf-wreathed head growing out of a mountain”, “or as a man clothed with animal skins.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuxi

Nüwa, also read Nügua, is a mother goddess, culture hero, and/or member of the Three Sovereigns of Chinese mythology. She is a goddess in Chinese folk religion, Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. She is credited with creating humanity and repairing the Pillar of Heaven.

As creator of mankind, she molded humans individually by hand with yellow clay. In other stories where she fulfills this role, she only created nobles and/or the rich out of yellow soil. The stories vary on the other details about humanity’s creation, but it was a tradition commonly believed in ancient China that she created commoners from brown mud. A story holds that she was tired when she created “the rich and the noble”, so all others, or “cord-made people”, were created from her “dragg[ing] a string through mud”.

Nüwa is often depicted holding a compass or multiple compasses, which were a traditional Chinese symbol of a dome-like sky. She was also thought to be an embodiment of the stars and the sky or a star god.

Fuxi and Nüwa can also appear individually on separate tomb bricks. They generally hold or embrace the sun or moon discs containing the images of a bird (or a three-legged crow) or a toad (sometimes a hare) which are the sun and moon symbolism respectively, and/or each holding a try square or a pair of compasses, or holding a longevity mushroom (靈芝; lingzhi) plant. Fuxi and Nüwa holding the sun and the moon appears as early as the late Western Han dynasty. Other physical appearance variation, such as lower snake-like body shape (e.g. thick vs thin tails), depictions of legs (i.e. legs found along the snake-like body) and wings (e.g. wings with feathers which protrude from their backs as found in late Western Han Xinan (新安) Tomb or smaller quills found on their shoulders), and in hats and hairstyles, also exist.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nüwa