The Indus Civilization
Page 22
The Bearded Man from HR Area (HR-910)
In 1925—1926 a well-preserved limestone head was found by Hargreaves in House I of HR-A Area, a large building just off Deadman Lane (figure 6.5). The head was 2 meters below ground surface in a Late Period context. The building is an interesting structure, unconventional in plan; it had been suggested that was a temple.32 HR-910 was one of two human sculptures found in this building, the second was found in pieces (HR 163/193/226) and was called the Sad Man of HR-A.
HR-910 is a well-preserved piece that has been fully described by Mackay.33 It survives to 17.5 centimeters high and has no trace of color or other finish. Some of its features contrast with those of the priest-king. The mass of this head is almost as big as the entire priest-king, as it survives today. An attempt had been made to represent wavy hair, and it is quite striking. Clearly seen on the left side of the sculpture, the hair was long and had been arranged in a bun at the back of the head and held in place with a string fillet and a small hairpin with a round top. The priest-king had short-cropped straight hair, not held in a bun.
The head has a short beard, and the upper lip seems definitely to have been shaved. The mouth is held in a slight smile; the lips, which are not full, are slightly pursed. The nose is of medium size, but broken. This man’s ears are also portrayed in a very simple way, being almost closed ovals, rather than the more usual C. The almond-shaped eyes, originally provided with inlay, are in distinct contrast to the heavily lidded eyes of the priest-king. HR-910 is more lifelike than the priest-king, less formal; and the overall sense of this head is one of attempted portraiture.
The Seated Man (L-950)
A headless seated male statue made of gray alabaster was found by Mackay in L Area on the southern half of the Mound of the Great Bath.34 It has been attributed to the Late Period (figure 6.5).
This seated figure survives to 29.2 centimeters in height. Based on the thickness of the clothing around the waist, Mackay hypothesized that he was wearing a thick, kilt-like garment, which was covered by a thinner garment or shawl that went over the left shoulder and under the right arm, just as with the priest-king. The left arm is at the outer side of the left leg, which is raised and bent at the knee. The right hand rests on the right knee. The hands are crudely and ineptly rendered. A “rope” of hair hangs down the back, asymmetrically to the right. “A squarish projection at the back of the head is evidently intended to represent a knot of hair. It is, however, unfinished and shows the chisel marks of the preliminary stone dressing.”35
This is the one statue from Mohenjo-daro that clearly is seated and costumed in the same manner as those seen in Bactrian art (figure 6.8), and the pose has been proposed by Ardeleanu-Jansen for the priest-king. This admits the possibility that the Mohenjo-daro representations are of Bactrians. The men on the Bactrian vase are “floating” in the sky above other men behind plows being pulled by Bos taurus, not the Indian zebu. Everyone looks perfectly at home. Of course, the dress could be Harappan and the Bactrian vase could represent “Harappans” floating in the sky above the plowmen. But nowhere else in the art of the Mature Harappan do we find this form of dress, so the balance tips a bit toward the notion that the Seated Man from L Area, and the priest-king, if Ardeleanu-Jansen is correct, represent Bactrians at Mohenjo-daro in the Late Period there. This might be late enough to somehow figure in the contacts between the Indus Civilization and the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex, and the Middle Asian Interaction sphere (see chapter 12).
The Stern Man (L-898)
Mackay found a second piece of statuary during his first season of excavation at Mohenjo-daro (1926—1927), here called the Stern Man from L Area (figure 6.5).36 This is a yellow limestone piece found 60 centimeters below the ground surface in Chamber 77. It, too, comes from the Late Period.
The head survives to 19.7 centimeters high and is beardless. The figure is thought to be a male based on the way in which the hair has been portrayed: It is arranged in a bun at the back, held in place by a fillet extending around from the front, just as in the Bearded Man of HR Area. Though there is not as much detail present in the Stern Man, the handling of the hair bun is very similar on both pieces; close enough to guess the probable gender. The mouth is full and straight, without expression. The nose is broken, but appears to have been carved in a fashion not unlike the other sculpture from Mohenjo-daro. The eyes are hollow, although they were drilled to take an inlay of some kind. The bust is expressionless; a real poker face. The ear is again, a simple crescent, matching that of the Bearded Man of HR Area. If they were properly studied, it might be determined that these two heads, the Bearded Man and Stern Man, were created by the same hand.
Human Figurines of the Indus Civilization
The human terra-cotta figurines of the Mature Harappan are varied in style, size, and theme. There are both males and females, as well as some examples whose gender cannot be determined. C. Jarrige is the expert on terra-cotta figurines of the Indus Age. One of the most distinctive terra-cotta figurines of the Mature Harappan is female, with a fan at the back of the head, sometimes with a basket, pannier-like container at one or both sides of the head (figure 6.9). This type is found at both Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, but is rarely encountered outside these urban centers. These females may be equipped with a girdle around the waist, or even a kind of miniskirt. (Perhaps an early precursor to the style of the 1960s?) Many of these figurines are bedecked with jewels and necklaces.
Figure 6.9 A classic terra-cotta figurine of a female from Mohenjo-daro (after Marshall 1931i)
Most of the figurines are loaded with jewelry, which is sometimes cleverly portrayed with little effort. In the longest of the strings worn by the figure shown in Pl. XCIV, 14, each bead is represented separately by a pellet of clay. The highly ornamental collar worn by this figure looks a most uncomfortable affair. A similar collar, if anything a little higher, is seen on no. 1 on the same Plate.37
Figure 6.10 Kulli-style human terra-cotta figurines (after Possehl 1986)
There are figurines with exaggerated collars. Others from Mohenjo-daro have tightly fitting neck rings, or chokers.38 It might be that some community within the Mohenjo-daro population found long necks a mark of beauty and distinction and achieved them through artificial means. Physical anthropology might be used to confirm or deny this.
Kulli Human Figurines The figurines from the Kulli Domain have a distinctive look, adding to our sense of cultural diversity during the Mature Harappan (figure 6.10).39 The Kulli folk were fond of figurines of several kinds, but animals, especially painted bulls, consistently outnumber the humans.40 At Nindowari the 173 animal figurines and 28 humans came mostly from one stone paved cell at the site—a rather spectacular and unusual concentration.
Figure 6.11 “Masks” from Mohenjo-daro (after Marshall 1931i)
Masks and Busts of Humans and Animals Masks and busts of humans and animals are part of the material inventory from Mature Harappan sites (figure 6.11). The humans appear to be males, but this has not been demonstrated conclusively in all cases. They are invariably horned and one has a goatee, so his sex is reasonably certain.41 His horns are also of the corkscrew variety; many of the others are straight, rather “devil-like.”42 There is also the representation of two devil-like individuals, complete with horns, cloven feet, and a pointed tail, in a posture of hailing someone (figure 6.12).43 These representations are on opposite edges of a stamp seal that has unicorns and script on the two large faces. It therefore has no boss. While each of the faces has a unicorn, the inscriptions are different.
Figure 6.12 Double-sided seal from Mohenjo-daro with the “devil” on two edges (after Marshall 1931i)
These devil-like representations come through with just enough strength and clarity to make us suppose they were part of the Indus system of beliefs. How they fit with the overall pantheon of the male animal deity and a female plant goddess is not known, but the “devil” is there and he was part of Indus life.
Th
e lthyphallic Males from Mature Harappan Sites and Mesopotamia
Some years ago Dales published a discussion of the links between the Indus Civilization and Mesopotamia, including dice and male figurines.44 The figurines interested Dales because two nearly identical examples have been found, one from Chanhu-daro, the other from Nippur (figure 6.13).
The objects in question are small handmade terracotta figurines of potbellied, naked males, about 12 centimeters tall. The legs are an integral part of the body, but the arms were attached separately, as with puppets, which seem to have been to the liking of the Harappans. The sexual organs of both pieces are broken, but the gender of the representations is not in doubt. In fact, they both seem to be in an ithyphallic state. Both figurines also have the remnants of small tails.
Figure 6.13 Ithyphallic terra-cotta figurines from Chanhu-daro and Nippur
There are five human figurines of this general type from Mohenjo-daro.45 Other examples come from Lohumjo-daro and Lothal. Figurines of this type have not been found at Harappa.
The figurines from Chanhu-daro and Nippur were tested to see if they were made of clay from the same source.46 They were not. The Chanhu-daro figurine was made of Sindhi clay, and the Nippur figurine was made in Mesopotamia, further strengthening the notion that there were Harappans there.
Ethnicity and Figurine Style
One of the assumptions in this study of the Indus Civilization is that there were many kinds of people in the region from the beginnings of food production through the Mature Harappan and posturban times. The principal evidence for this is diversity in the artifactual record. While “pots are not people,” the diverse archaeological assemblages, especially after Togau Phase times, are highly likely to indicate some degree of ethnic diversity. Although this is a kind of principle, it should be remembered that it is inappropriate to think of the “Kot Diji people” or the “Amri-Nal folk” simply because there is an archaeological assemblage by that name. Moreover, there is every possibility that within as large and diverse an archaeological assemblage as the Amri-Nal, there was cultural and ethnic diversity as well. And the same ethnic group might have spread between areas like the Kot Dijian and Amri-Nal Early Harappan assemblages.
Support for this proposition of ethnic diversity also can be obtained from the human skeletal record, which indicates some degree of biological diversity. One can also look to the representations of people in the figurines of the Mature Harappan. There is a good deal of diversity in dress, headgear, and hairstyles—all of which can be used as indicators of ethnicity. This topic has not been explored well, but within the context there is a cautionary word from F. Barth:47 He warns that while ethnicity is often displayed in material culture, only a limited number of articles from the wide spectrum of available objects will carry this marker or be used in this way. There is no simple one-to-one correlation, so what is said here should not be seen as a conclusion but an indication that serious work on this corpus of material, from this perspective, might be rewarding.
In some ways the figurines offer the most intimate insight into the peoples of the Indus Age, since many of the representations seem to have been taken from daily life. Jan Fairservis has created a drawing based on Indus figurines that shows some of the diversity of dress and hairstyles (figure 6.14). The Indus people come in great variety, with many poses: sitting in chairs, lying on beds, holding babies and animals, kneading bread, and other things that people do to round out their existence. They form a loose style, compared to a distinctive Kulli style of the same period. A vast quantity of human figurines, both male and female, come from the long sequence at Mehrgarh, giving us a strong sense of the depth of the figurine-making traditions of the Indus Age.
Animals in Art: Menagerie of the Indus Age
Many plants and animals are represented in the archaeological record of the Indus Age. Some were exotic, such as peacocks and pangolins; others were very much a part of the day-to-day life of these peoples and played a critical role in their survival: cattle, sheep, and goats, for example. Animal life has been discussed in detail elsewhere in the literature. 48 Some animals, such as the lion and Indus porpoise, are missing from the archaeological record even though they were certainly present in the Greater Indus region.
While plant life is very much a part of Indus imagery, only a few species can be positively identified; for example, the pipal and the water lily. It has not been possible to produce a great deal of information on plants, but perhaps someone with a botanical background might be more successful.
There are several interesting, relatively large reclining caprids in the Indus Civilization. They are all from Mohenjo-daro and have been nicely summarized by Ardeleanu-Jansen.49
The Fantastic People and Animals of the Indus Age
There are many animals in the art of the Indus Age that are clearly a part of the natural world. Scholars agree that there are good representations of zebus, water buffaloes, elephants, tigers, gavials, and rhinoceroses on the seals. But there are others that are the product of the imagination of the Indus peoples: unicorns with elephant trunks, for example (figure 6.15). This is an exceptional motif in Mature Harappan art since the animal presented here is a true patchwork of animals. Moving from head to rear, one notices a rather human face and an elephant’s trunk hanging from the chin. There is a slight suggestion of tusks, which is better shown on FEMD seal number 411. The head is crowned with double horns, rather like the one on zebu seals. The neck has the ornamentation of the unicorn, and the forelegs and sometimes the body are a part of the same animal in Mature Harappan art. Depending on the seal, the rear of the body may have tiger stripes, sometimes only the rear legs are treated this way. The rear legs are not bovid but felid, with claws not cloven hoofs. On one of the seals the tail is raised and looks something like a scorpion tail with the stinger at the end. There is also the representation of two unicorns emerging from the top of a standard adorned with pipal leaves (figure 6.16).
Figure 6.14 Indications of possible ethnicity from terra-cotta figurines from Mohenjo-daro and Harappa (in a drawing by Jan Fairservis)
There are many representations of “humans” with horns, some or all of which could be simply headdresses; others may be representations of an Harappan notion of humans with this biological feature. The Mahayogi seal might fit in here as would the very nice terra-cotta masks. Horned females are also known, as depicted on the seal with a woman in combat with a horned tiger; there is no doubt that is the figure possesses a rather pendulous breast, so the gender identification seems reasonably secure (figure 6.17).
There is also the well-known incised triangular terracotta cake from Kalibangan (figure 6.18). One side has a human with a tethered animal, of which the species is still undetermined. The face of the cake has a horned human with what is generally thought of as a plant growing out of the top of his or her head. But this could be hair, as demonstrated by an ethnographic analogy from Greenwich Village, New York, in 1989, shown in figure 6.19.
Figure 6.15 A composite animal on an Indus seal (after Mackay 1937—38)
There is another composite creation of the Harappans. This is the centaur-like creature, with the torso of a human on the body of an animal with claws and a long straight tail, perhaps of a tiger. The human has a long braid, characteristic of many Indus representations of humans, as well as a set of horns generally parallel to the ground. This creature also appears on the cylinder seal from Kalibangan approaching (probably not departing from) the central group of three humans, two of whom hold spears over the head of a smaller individual (figure 6.20).
Figure 6.17 Horned female in combat with a horned tiger (after Marshall 1931i)
Figure 6.16 Seal with “unicorns” emerging out of a pipal tree (after Marshall 1931i)
There is a window here into the world of the Harappans. These representations of fantasy do not, however, seem to dominate their art. On the whole, the Indus peoples in their art, as in other aspects of their lives, come across as people wi
th a practical bent, a tendency to deal with and represent the real world as they (and we) see it. There is just enough of the fabulous world there for a bit of spice to be sensed, and the same is true for their painted pottery.
INDUS PAINTED POTTERY
There is a variety of painted wares and motifs at Mature Harappan sites. Some of these seem to be intrusive, clearly having been made elsewhere and transported to a new “home.” The Ahar white painted black and red ware common on many Sindhi Harappan sites in Kutch (e.g., Surkotada and Dholavira) is a good example of this. The occasional Kulli-style sherd has been found in the Indus Valley, even at Mohenjo-daro. There was also a great deal of line painting on pots during the Mature Harappan, the simplest kind of painted decoration, just enough to break the monotony of a plain surface. Slips on the pottery were also common, almost always red. Slips are a kind of paint used to cover all or virtually all of the visible surface of the pot. They are generally applied before firing and serve to give the vessel a pleasant consistent color, difficult to achieve if the plain clay surface was unaltered. Some of these red-slipped pots were painted in a way that I have come to think of as the “classic” Indus black paint on red slip decorative style (figure 6.21). There is nothing like it anywhere else in the world, making it easy to identify.