General Studies Paper 1
Context: On the occasion of International Museum Day PM Modi unveiled the Expos mascot – a “contemporised” version of the famous Dancing Girl of Mohenjodaro. The traditional craft of Channapatna toys was used to create this mascot.
Channapatna toys
- Channapatna toys are a particular form of wooden toys and dolls that are manufactured in the town of Channapatna in the Ramanagara district of Karnataka.
- This traditional craft is protected as a Geographical Indication (GI).
- As a result of the popularity of these toys, Channapatna is known as the Gombegala Ooru (toy- town) of Karnataka.
- Traditionally, the work involved lacquering the wood of the Wrightia tinctoria tree, colloquially called Aale mara (ivory-wood).
Mohenjo-Daro
- Mohenjo-Daro or the“Mound of the dead” lies in Larkana district of Sindh (Pakistan), about 5 km away from the Indus.
- It is one of the largest of the Indus Valley Civilization sites.
- It was discovered by archeologists Rakhaldas Banerji and Sir John Marshall.
- The site is famous for its elaborate town planning with street grids with brick pavements, developed water supply, drainage, and covered sewerage systems, homes with toilets, and monumental buildings.
- Its excavations revealed findings like the Great Bath, Great Granary, a large assembly hall, temple-like structure, the seal of Pashupati and a bust of a bearded man.
- It is the most glaring example of town planning in the Harappan civilization. The city is divided into citadel and lower city.
- The civilization went into decline in the middle of the second millennium BC for reasons that are believed to include catastrophic climate change.
About the Mohenjo Daro Dancing Girl
- The Dancing Girl was discovered in 1926, by British archaeologist Ernest McKay in a ruined house in the ‘ninth lane’ of Mohenjodaro’s citadel.
- Even though Mohenjodaro and Harappa became part of Pakistani territory after the Partition, the Dancing Girl remained in India as part of an agreement.
- Today, the bronze figurine sits in the National Museum of India as an artifact, often referred to as its “star object”.
Why is it called Dancing Girl?
- Over the years, the Dancing Girl has been an object of fascination for archaeologists and historians. Of particular interest has been the pose the woman strikes and what that means.
- John Marshall, Director-General of the ASI from 1902 to 1928 who oversaw the initial excavations in Harappa and Mohenjodaro, described the figurine 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”.
- As Marshall’s description suggests, it is the pose that the figurine strikes that has led historians to believe that the woman depicted was a dancer.However, there is no other evidence to support this claim.
- Recent work on the issue has suggested that the “dancer” label came from readings of Indian history from later dates,when court and temple dancers were commonplace.
Significance
- The Dancing Girl is evidence of the civilisation’s knowledge of metal blending and lost-wax casting– a complicated process by which a duplicate sculpture is cast from an original sculpture to create highly detailed metallic artefacts.
- Moreover, the very existence of a figurine such as the Dancing Girl, indicates the presence of high art in Harappan society.
- While art has probably been around since the very beginning of human existence, the degree of its sophistication indicates a society’s advancement.
- The Dancing Girl by all appearances is not an object built for some utilitarian purpose – artists took great time to create an artefact of purely symbolic, aesthetic value.