Dancing Girl is a prehistoric bronze sculpture made in lost-wax casting about c. 2300–1751 BC in the Indus Valley Civilisation city of Mohenjo-daro (in modern-day Pakistan), which was one of the earliest cities. The statue is 10.5 centimetres (4.1 in) tall, and depicts a nude young woman or girl with stylized ornaments, standing in a confident, naturalistic pose. Dancing Girl is highly regarded as a work of art.

In 2016, a Pakistani barrister, Javed Iqbal Jaffery, petitioned the Lahore High Court for the return of the statue, claiming that it had been “taken from Pakistan 60 years ago on the request of the National Arts Council in Delhi but never returned”. According to him, the Dancing Girl was to Pakistan what Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was to Europe. However, no public request to India has been made by the Pakistani government.

  • rnercle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    6·
    1 day ago

    To the American IVC specialist Jonathan Kenoyer, the reading of the figure as a dancer is “based on a colonial British perception of Indian dancers, but it more likely represents a woman carrying an offering” (which he also thinks the second figure is doing), although most sources, such as the National Museum of India, continue to see her as a dancer.

    from the Wikipedia page linked by @SnokenKeekaGuard@lemmy.dbzer0.com

    • SanctimoniousApeEnglish
      14·
      23 hours ago

      Thanks for that (believe it or not, the effort actually is appreciated), but you do realize my comment was a joke, right? That’s why I said “lighten up” - it was for those too serious to recognize it as such.

      • rnercle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        11 hours ago

        i kept reading because i too can’t see a dancer in that figure 🤷

        but then imagine a figurine of a twerk, found a thousand years from now, without any context to explain what’s happening 😀