Focus on this artwork and analyze the Interpretations.
In 1973, British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler described the item as his favourite statuette:She's about fifteen years old I should think, not more, but she stands there with bangles all the way up her arm and nothing else on. A girl perfectly, for the moment, perfectly confident of herself and the world. There's nothing like her, I think, in the world.
John Marshall, the archeologist at Mohenjo-daro who found the figure, described the figure as "a young girl, her hand on her hip in a half-impudent posture, and legs slightly forward as she beats time to the music with her legs and feet". He is known to have reacted with surprise when he saw this statuette. He said "When I first saw them I found it difficult to believe that they were prehistoric." The archaeologist Gregory Possehl described Dancing Girl as "the most captivating piece of art from an Indus site" and qualified the description of her as a dancer by stating that "We may not be certain that she was a dancer, but she was good at what she did and she knew it."To the American IVC specialist Jonathan Kenoyer, the reading of the figure as a dancer is "based on a colonial British perception of Indian dancers, but it more likely represents a woman carrying an offering" (which he also thinks the second figure is doing), although most sources, such as the National Museum of India, continue to see her as a dancer.
The statue led to two important discoveries about the civilization: first that they knew metal blending, casting and other sophisticated methods, and secondly that entertainment, especially dance, was part of the culture. The bronze girl was made using the lost-wax casting technique and shows the expertise of the people in making bronze works during that time.A similar bronze statuette was found by Mackay during his final full season of 1930–31 at DK-G area in a house at Mohenjo-daro. The preservation, as well as quality of craftsmanship, is inferior to that of the well known Dancing Girl. This second bronze female figure is displayed at the National Museum of Pakistan, Pakistan.An engraving on a piece of red potsherd, discovered at Bhirrana, India, a Harappan site in Fatehabad district in Haryana, shows an image that is evocative of Dancing Girl. The excavation team leader, L. S. Rao, Superintending Archaeologist, Excavation Branch, ASI, remarked that, "the delineation [of the lines in the potsherd] is so true to the stance, including the disposition of the hands, of the bronze that it appears that the craftsman of Bhirrana had first-hand knowledge of the former".
India Harappa potsherd bangle Pakistan Mortimer Wheeler Bhirrana lost-wax casting sherd Jonathan Kenoyer National Museum of Pakistan Mohenjo-daro Gregory Possehl National Museum of India