Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.141

c12.141

Now this adornment of sculpture with inlay and metalwork is a frequent fashion in prehistoric Western Asia, but one not characteristic of early historic Indian sculpture. One is therefore inclined to accept the two Harappā sculptures as authentic expressions of prehistoric Indian art in the third millennium B.C. There is, however, additional evidence to support this view. From Mohenjo-daro also comes the exquisite little bronze figure of a Dancing-Girl, more than once referred to already, with a sensitive modelling of the body and limbs closely akin to the feeling of the Harappā sculptures. This bronze was found in an unexceptionable archaeological context, and we have seen that it represents, in all details of hairdressing and adornment, a sophisticated version of the female type known in the rough, schematized pottery figurines in the Kulli Culture, and is likely to represent trade between Mohenjo-daro and South Baluchistan. The sum of evidence, therefore, suggests that naturalistic human sculpture which even foreshadows later Indian artistic modes was produced in the Harappā civilization, and was already essentially Indian.