TANG DYNASTY 618 – 907. Tang Mingqi Pottery

A Rare Tang Pottery Mingqi Model of Conjoined Fu Xi and Nu Wa. This Tang Pottery Model Consists of a Crudely Made Hollow Central Section with Roughly Scratched Hatched Markings and an Uneven Line of Holes Running Down the Back. Either Side is a Moulded Head, Each is Different to the other and Both have Different Style Hats. The Firing has Caused One Half to be Red While the Other is Black.

In Chinese mythology Nu Wa is a Chinese mythological character best known for creating and reproducing people after a great calamity. Some scholars suggest that the female Nu Wa was the first creative Chinese deity, appropriate for ancient Chinese matriarchal society, in which childbirth was seen to be a miraculous occurrence, not requiring the participation of the male. The earliest myths represent Nu Wa as a female in a procreative role; in later stories Nu Wa has a husband/brother named Fu Xi, who assumes primary importance. In ancient art, Nu Wa is often depicted with a snake body and a human head.
According to myth, Nu Wa shaped the first human beings out of yellow clay, then grew tired, dipped a rope into the mud and swung it around. The blobs of mud that fell from the rope became common people, while the hand-crafted ones became the nobility. Another myth recounts how Nu Wa saved mankind from terrible flooding and destruction.
By the Han Dynasty (206 – 220 C.E.), Nu Wa was described in literature with her husband Fu Xi as the first of the Three August Ones and Five Emperors, and they were often called the “parents of humankind.” In the earliest Chinese dictionary, Shuowen Jiezi, by Xu Shen , Nu Wa is said to have been both the sister and the wife of Fu Xi. However, paintings depicting them joined as half people, half snake or dragon, date as far back as the Warring States period. A stone tablet from the Han dynasty depicts Fu Xi with Nu Wa, who was both his wife and his sister.
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