National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

PLATE VIII

PAINTED FRAGMENTS FROM MURTUK, SHRINE C. IV

THE Murtuk site in the Turfán basin, about ten miles north of Karakhója, is one of the many areas in this locality containing numberless ruined shrines. The few fragments of a picture, reproduced here, were recovered from the debris of a `completely destroyed small shrine'.

M. C. IV. 017, 019, &c.

Two Bodhisattvas are seated against an architectural background. Each figure

seems to occupy a separate cell or bay, lighted by an opening at the back, screened

by a chiq or reed blind. The cells are divided from one another by narrow piers or

cross walls, which support a flat ceiling; and the structure is covered by a pent

roof, tiled with long slabs. Below the eaves is faintly visible a frieze of roundels

probably representing the ends of rafters. The walls are shaded grey and green

with red vertical bands; the roundels green outlined with black; the roof shingles

grey, and coping-stones green. The background above is pink with red spots.

The figures are of a fully developed type of celestial being, found in most of the

paintings brought by Stein from the Bezeklik shrines. The two presented here are

rather Mongolian in appearance, but have individual character. In both, the eyes

are narrow and long with arched eyebrows. The nose is long and narrow, the

mouth small, and the lower part of the cheeks full and fleshy. Jewellery and coiffure

are rich and elaborate. The complicated mukuta or tiara is bound to the head by a

white taenia, knotted and draped behind the ears, in sharp contrast with the black

hair. Long narrow stoles of a rich red seem to be animated by a strong breeze.

Contour lines are red and black. The work is good and shows Chinese influence

in the freedom of design and drawing. It is interesting to find the observance of

modern rules of perspective in the receding line at the top of the cross wall.

PAINTED FRAGMENTS FROM TOYUK, SHRINE VI

TOYUK lies about eight miles due east of Kara-khója. The small shrine, VI, cut

into the rock, was in a ruinous condition when visited by Sir Aurel Stein in 1914;

and with the exception of the painted dome, reproduced in plate x, only small

fragments of painted plaster were recovered. Careful and repeated study dis-

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