Dancing Girl- A rare artifact!!


Dancing Girl
Fig: 1.1 Dancing Girl
Place of Origin: Mohenjodaro
Material: Bronze
Dimension: 10.5 x 5 x 2.5 cm
Accession No.: 5721/195

This is one of the rarest artifacts from around the world and is a unique blend of antiqueness and art indexing the lifestyle, taste and cultural excellence of people in such remote past as about five millenniums from now. This tiny bronze-cast statue is called ‘Dancing girl’ (Fig:1.1). It was recovered in excavation from ‘HR area’ of Mohenjodaro.


The statue is of a thin young woman standing with her right hand on the back  of her hip and the left hand resting on her left thigh.  Her features are prominent with large eyes, bunched curly hair and flat nose. The adornment of her left arm is widely different from the right. Her arms are unnaturally long, has a high neck, subdued belly, moderately sized breasts and sensuously modelled waist-part along vagina, her anatomy. She is shown wearing a necklace with four ‘phalis’ like shaped pendant. It is an impressive work of art currently displayed in the Harappan Gallery of the National Museum, New Delhi. (Fig: 1.2)

A photo of a lady from rural background has been placed outside the showcase, so that the people could get an idea as the jewellery and attire resemble the ancient life of Harappans which is still continued in the Western parts of India (Fig: 1.3).


Fig: 1.2 Dancing Girl displyed in the National Museum

Fig: 1.3 Photo of a Lady from rural background
               
                                   







Comments

  1. Museum_eclecticSeptember 6, 2019 at 9:14 PM

    Nice. 👏

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownSeptember 9, 2019 at 9:25 PM

    What a joy to watch and read about this famed piece of art. I remember to have read about it in our class 8 history chapter, but that was just a photo and one sentence at its bottom. Thanks for the larger knowledge🙏

    ReplyDelete

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