Chanlin Bai

Chanlin Bai

December 31, 2025

Kizil Grottoes murals, Qiuci females, Image of female providers.

The murals in the Kizil Grottoes are a witness to the two-way interaction between China and ancient India, ancient Persia, ancient Greece, and ancient Rome along the Silk Road during the Han and Tang dynasties. This exchange gradually formed the current appearance of the murals in the Kizil Grottoes. To interpret the female donors in the murals of the Kizil Grottoes, it is not only necessary to take a single mural as the starting point, but also to grasp the relationship between the mural and the cave from a macro perspective. By comparing the images, inscriptions, and historical documents on which the images are based, a more scientific and accurate explanation of the mural images can be obtained. Therefore, this article aims to use some female providers in the murals of the Kizil Grottoes as the starting point to provide a simple classification and overview of the mural images of female providers, explore the identity characteristics and humanistic pursuits behind women in Qiuci from a female perspective, and appreciate the artistic crystallization of female provider images under the combination of ancient Qiuci Chinese painters' skills and creativity.

© 2025, the Authors. Published by ISCCAC

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license