Dancing Girl (Mohenjo-Daro)

The bronze statue of a woman, contemporarily labelled as the Dancing Girl, belonging to the

Indus Civilization proves to be an important artifact to understand the social organization of this

civilization. It provides us with a possible insight into the lives of women in Mohenjo-Daro and

the kind of societal norms they lived with. Though British historians contextualized the statue as

the figure of a dancer, simply because she is dressed in a seemingly ‘provocative’ manner, it is

nonetheless more of a commentary of the perception of contemporary society rather than an

indication of the significance of the statue. The woman is cast as nude and adorns bangles on her

hands and an extravagant neckpiece, exuding an aura of confidence and composure. The lack of

clothes and the obvious importance of the woman could be interpreted to say that in the urban

civilization of Mohenjo-Daro, woman were not subjugated to conservative restrictions as

compared to contemporary times. It could possibly show that urban culture was much evolved in

terms of how women were perceived by society and had greater freedom in expressing their

sexuality without being objectified.