Notable artefacts
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Boat with direction finding birds to find land. Model of Mohenjo-Daro seal, 2500–1750 BC
Numerous objects found in excavation include seated and standing figures, copper and stone tools, carved seals, balance-scales and weights, gold and jasper jewellery, and children's toys. Many bronze and copper pieces, such as figurines and bowls, have been recovered from the site, showing that the inhabitants of Mohenjo-daro understood how to utilize the lost wax technique. The furnaces found at the site are believed to have been used for copperworks and melting the metals as opposed to smelting. There even seems to be an entire section of the city dedicated to shell-working, located in the northeastern part of the site. Some of the most prominent copperworks recovered from the site are the copper tablets which have examples of the untranslated Indus script and iconography. While the script has not been deciphered yet, many of the images on the tablets match another tablet and both hold the same caption in the Indus language, with the example given showing three tablets with the image of a mountain goat and the inscription on the back reading the same letters for the three tablets.
Pottery and terracotta sherds have been recovered from the site, with many of the pots having deposits of ash in them, leading archeologists to believe they were either used to hold the ashes of a person or as a way to warm up a home located in the site. These heaters, or braziers, were ways to heat the house while also being able to be utilized in a manner of cooking or straining, while others solely believe they were used for heating.
The finds from Mohenjo-daro were initially deposited in the Lahore Museum, but later moved to the ASI headquarters at New Delhi, where a new "Central Imperial Museum" was being planned for the new capital of the British Raj, in which at least a selection would be displayed. It became apparent that Indian independence was approaching, but the Partition of India was not anticipated until late in the process. The new Pakistani authorities requested the return of the Harappan pieces excavated on their territory, but the Indian authorities refused. Eventually an agreement was reached, whereby the finds, totalling some 12,000 objects (most sherds of pottery), were split equally between the countries; in some cases this was taken very literally, with some necklaces and girdles having their beads separated into two piles. In the case of the "two most celebrated sculpted figures", Pakistan asked for and received the Priest-king, while India retained the much smaller Dancing Girl, and also the Pashupati seal.
Most of the objects from Mohenjo-daro retained by India are in the National Museum of India in New Delhi and those returned to Pakistan in the National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi, with many also in the museum now established at Mohenjo-daro itself. In 1939, a small representative group of artefacts excavated at the site was transferred to the British Museum by the Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India.
Mother Goddess Idol[edit]
"The Mother Goddess"
Discovered by John Marshall in 1931, the idol appears to mimic certain characteristics that match the Mother Goddess belief common in many early Near East civilisations. Sculptures and figurines depicting women have been observed as part of Harappan culture and religion, as multiple female pieces were recovered from Marshall's archaeological digs. These figures were not categorized correctly, according to Marshall, meaning that where they were recovered from the site is not actually clear. One of said figures is 18.7 cm tall and is currently on display at the National Museum of Pakistan, in Karachi. The fertility and motherhood aspects on display on the idols is represented by the female genitalia that is presented in an almost exaggerated style as stated by Marshall, with him inferring that such figurines are offerings to the goddess, as opposed to the typical understanding of them being idols representing the goddess's likeness. Because of the figurines being unique in terms of hairstyles, body proportions, as well as headdresses and jewelry, there are theories as to who these figurines actually represent. Shereen Ratnagar theorizes that because of their uniqueness and dispersed discovery throughout the site that they could be figurines of ordinary household women, who commissioned these pieces to be used in rituals or healing ceremonies to help aforementioned individual women.
Dancing Girl[edit]
Main article: Dancing Girl (prehistoric sculpture)
"The Dancing Girl"
A bronze statuette dubbed the "Dancing Girl", 10.5 centimetres (4.1 in) high and around 4,000 years old, was found in 'HR area' of Mohenjo-daro in 1926; it is now in the National Museum, New Delhi. 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, another archeologist at Mohenjo-daro, 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." The archaeologist Gregory Possehl said of the statuette, "We may not be certain that she was a dancer, but she was good at what she did and she knew it." The statue led to two important discoveries about the civilisation: first, that they knew metal blending, casting and other sophisticated methods of working with ore, and secondly that entertainment, especially dance, was part of the culture.
Priest-King[edit]
Main article: Priest-King (sculpture)
"The Priest-King", a seated stone sculpture at the National Museum, Karachi
In 1927, a seated male soapstone figure was found in a building with unusually ornamental brickwork and a wall-niche. Though there is no evidence that priests or monarchs ruled Mohenjo-daro, archaeologists dubbed this dignified figure a "Priest-King". The sculpture is 17.5 centimetres (6.9 in) tall, and shows a neatly bearded man with pierced earlobes and a fillet around his head, possibly all that is left of a once-elaborate hairstyle or head-dress; his hair is combed back. He wears an armband, and a cloak with drilled trefoil, single circle and double circle motifs, which show traces of red. His eyes might have originally been inlaid.
Pashupati seal[edit]
Main article: Pashupati seal
The Pashupati seal
A seal discovered at the site bears the image of a seated, cross-legged and possibly ithyphallic figure surrounded by animals. The figure has been interpreted by some scholars as a yogi, and by others as a three-headed "proto-Shiva" as "Lord of Animals".
Seven-stranded necklace[edit]
Sir Mortimer Wheeler was especially fascinated with this artifact, which he believed to be at least 4,500 years old. The necklace has an S-shaped clasp with seven strands, each over 4 ft long, of bronze-metal bead-like nuggets which connect each arm of the "S" in filigree. Each strand has between 220 and 230 of the many-faceted nuggets, and there are about 1,600 nuggets in total. The necklace weighs about 250 grams in total, and is presently held in a private collection in India.[citation needed]
The Mohenjo-daro ruler[edit]
The Indus Valley civilisation employed rulers made of ivory for measuring length circa 1500 BC. The Mohenjo-Daro ruler is divided into units corresponding to 34 millimetres (1.32 in) and these are further marked in decimal subdivisions with great accuracy, to within 0.13 mm (0.005 in). A ruler found at Lothal (2400 BCE) is calibrated to about 1.6 mm (1⁄16 in). The decimal subdivision on the ruler is noteworthy, as it predates the modern metric system by 3,000 years or more. The base unit used was known as the angula (finger) and is about 17 mm. A piece of shell found in Mackay's excavation is very precisely incised with lines spaced 6.7 mm (0.264 in) apart. Ancient bricks found throughout the region have dimensions that correspond to these units.
