A sarcophagus dedicated to Heo Jae (1062-1144) marks the first appearance of a specific figural type of twelve Chinese zodiac signs in the Korean peninsula. Taking human forms with animal-themed headgears, the zodiac type abruptly emerged out of a tangled web of international relations that entailed a massive inf lux of foreign cultures during the middle period of the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392). Around the time, the Goryeo dynasty embraced a state-sponsored form of Daoism and related liturgical codes from the Northern Song dynasty (960-1126); and the introduction has facilitated the construction of Bokwon-gung, a temple where a variety of celestial Daoist deities were worshipped through the jiao rituals. The incorporation of the sophisticated system of the Northern Song Daoism with Goryeo’s local cults provided a context in which Daoist cosmology involving the notions of the twelve zodiac signs came into the Goryeo funerary art. A wave of Khitan immigration into Goryeo following the decline of the Liao dynasty (907-1125), on the other hand, ushered in an array of visual patterns and images, which Khitan technologies had made available for the Liao mortuary art, onto Goryeo tombstones and stone coffins. It thus appears that the zodiac motifs on the Heo Jae sarcophagus owe their iconographic origin to the human-form-and- animal-headgear type of the Chinese twelve astrological signs inscribed on Liao gravestones. A late Goryeo tomb excavated at Surakam-dong features mural paintings that include the zodiac images of the human-form-and-animal-headgear type. Probably the earliest of the Goryeo tomb murals displaying the type, the Surakam-dong tomb has the walls adorned with the zodiac icons and the four directional guardians in a large scale, the combination of which finds its precedent from the Heo Jae sarcophagus. Previously there has been confusion over iconographic identification of the twelve images in this tomb, resulting from a misunderstanding the Joseon Gojeok dobo (Album of ancient sites and monuments of Joseon) has made; and yet this essay settles the issue by identifying the central figure of the northern wall as a figuration of the Rabbit rather than that of the Rat. The superior pictorial quality of the Surakam-dong murals differs clearly from those of contemporaneous Chinese tomb paintings. Therefore I argue that the stylistic source of the Surakam-dong murals lies in Daoist figure painting of the Northern Song dynasty by comparison to the Procession of Daoist Deities by Wu Zongyuan (active early 11th century) and also to the murals of the Yongle gong temple from the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) that preserves Wu’s style. Built in the last decades of the Goryeo dynasty, Royal Tomb of King Gongmin (r. 1351- 1374) displays the zodiac images of the same type in an unprecedented frontal pose. The use of five cardinal colors seems to tally with the discussion of the Five Phases, a Neo Confucian theory that made its way to Goryeo around this time. Since their Daoist implications remain elusive, a better understanding can be pursued through comparative examination of No Hoesin tomb from Wonju city (dated 1456) that has much in common with the fourteenth- century royal tomb regarding the course of producing mural paintings. In a chamber of the No tomb, the zodiac images were drawn together with four directional guardians, but they were executed in different techniques. In another unused extra stone chamber, the zodiac group does not appear while the latter group is depicted. The tomb decoration structure suggests that the zodiac images of the No Hoesin tomb are later additions, made at the last stage of a funerary ceremony when other grave goods were buried. Likewise it can be reasoned that the zodiac images of the Royal Tomb of King Gongmin were put as conceptual substitutes for burial goods or with a duly prescribed ritual pertaining to a set of Confucian funerary protocols.