The Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-Daro

The Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-Daro (c. -2500) is a small bronze figurine that is over 4,000 years old, found in the lost city of Mohenjo-Daro. It is the most famous piece of art from the Indus (aka Harappan) civilization (-2600 to -1600).

She is not that big: 10.5 cm tall (4.1 inches) – you could hold her in the palm of your hand. We do not know if she is a dancer – she just seems that way when you compare her to all the stiff-looking statues of the time.

She is made of bronze, a mix of copper and tin. Back then bronze was commonly used in India and Mesopotamia (Iraq) but not Egypt. In India bronze was used to make jars, pots, bowls, dishes, pans, knives, chisels, axes, bangles, rings, beads, and pins. But it was not a common material for statues.

She was made using the lost wax method. She was made first of wax. The wax was then used to make a clay cast. The wax was melted away and then bronze was poured into the cast. When the metal cooled the cast was broken.

The owner was not rich: It was found in a small house. There were much bigger houses in Mohenjo-Daro.

She is naked wearing only a necklace, 25 bangles on her left arm and four on her right. It was common in Harappan art to show genitals. What was not common was not giving her large breasts or wide hips.

Who was she? Some scholars say she was a real person, even if her arms and legs are too long. One scholar says she was Parvati, a goddess of love, even though her figure is more that of a girl than a woman.

Was she African? Like the Olmec heads of Mexico, she looks suspiciously African. Trade between India and Africa was not common back then, but an African woman from this period was found buried in the Indus Valley at Chanhu-Dara.

The Dancing Girl is culturally South Asian: she wears her hair and bangles in a style that is found in South Asia still to this day.

People in India looked Blacker back then. The statue was made nearly 1,000 years before India was taken over by the light-skinned Indo-Aryans from the north. Herodotus, some 2,000 years after the statue was made, said Indians looked Ethiopian (except for their hair). He never travelled to India but knew about the Indian soldiers in the Persian army.

Pakistan: Every now and then there is a call for India to “return” the Dancing Girl to Pakistan. Mohenjo-Daro is in Pakistan, but the statue itself is in India, at the National Museum in New Delhi. When the statue was discovered in 1926, Mohenjo-Daro was part of British India. In 1947 Pakistan broke away from India.

Under UNESCO rules Pakistan could possibly claim that the British stole it as an illegitimate colonial government. But the Pakistani government is itself is a spin-off of that same colonial government – giving it no more right to the statue than the British had.

– Abagond, 2018.

Sources: mainly Google Images (2018); ThoughtCo (2017); Huffington Post (2017); Outlook India (2016).

See also:

• Welcome to Asian American History Month 2018
• India
  • Indus civilization
• Herodotus on Black people
• Olmec heads
• The last 6,000 years

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