Indus Valley Art

Indus Valley Art I• The Indus Valley is one of the world's earliest urban

civilizations, along with its contemporaries, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt

• Date: 3300 BCE to 1500 BCE

• The civilization is noted for its cities built of bricks, roadside drainage system, and multistoried houses.

• So planned cities

• Main sites

• Apart from these recent ones unearthed at

• Dholavira (Gujarat)

• Kalibangan are also important

• Though it seems to have been a very well advanced society we know little about it because the script has not yet been deciphered (cannot be read)

• So a lot of mystery about various facets of the civilization from its origin to extinction

Mohenjodaro excavated site

Art

• Varied and extremely curious kinds of artifacts have been found from Indus valley sites

• Sculptures, seals, pottery, gold jewelry, and anatomically detailed figurines in terracotta, bronze, and steatite (a kind of soapstone) have been found at excavation sites.

Seals

• Steatite seals have images of animals, people (perhaps gods), and other types of inscriptions, including the yet un-deciphered writing system of the Indus Valley Civilization.

• Some of the seals were used to stamp clay on trade goods and most probably had other uses as well.

• Many of them preserved in National Museum, Delhi

Usually indentified as a Proto Shiva seal

Siva as Pasupati

• The Pashupati Seal: This seal depicts what is probably the modern Hindu God, Shiv. Lord Shiv is surrounded by various animals like the rhino, the buffalo, the elephant and deer

• tiger. He wears a crown of horns on his head. He is believed to have been considered by the Indus Valley Civilization people as the lord of the animals.

• The Unicorn Seal: This is based on a fictional animal that the Indus Valley Civilization people had conjured up. It is an example of early fictional art.

Sculpture

• Sculpture appeared to have made great advancements based on the various artifacts that have been found.

• The Indus Valley Civilization made sculptures mainly in stone, metal and terra-cotta.

• The famous bust of the bearded man, and the male torso are examples of such work.

Bearded man excavated from Mohenjodaro

Authority

Stylized

Well developed sculptural style

• The Indus Valley Civilization had also made great advances in metal sculptures using a fascinating technique to make sculptures out of bronze. The process was known as the lost wax process.

• . A beautiful example of such work, is the naked dancing girl found at Mohenjo-Daro. She is covered with jewellery, wearing several necklaces and bangles. Bronze figures of buffalos and the humped bull have also been found.

• The Indus Valley Civilization also made several sculptures out of terra-cotta, a fine example being a figure of the Mother Goddess. It shows the Mother Goddess as a mark of fertility and prosperity. The Indus Valley Civilization had also developed skills in pottery and painting. They used a special type of clay, which was baked. Once the pot was made, the painters would paint beautiful designs, the theme being birds, animals and men