Pakistan is asking India to return 'Dancing Girl': 10 things to know
1) According to PTI Islamabad, a Pakistani lawyer has filed a petition in the Lahore High Court asking his government to bring back "Dancing Girl", a 5,000-year-old bronze statue called, from India.
2) This 10.8cm long bronze statue was found in 1926 from a broken down house on the "ninth lane" in Mohenjo-Daro, Pakistan. It was found by excavator DR Sahni during the 1926-1927 field season.
3) The "Dancing Girl" is a free-standing bronze figurine, with about 25 bangles on her left arm, and holding a small bowl in her right hand. She has a relatively short trunk and long legs and arms; her head is tilted slightly back and her left leg is bent at the knee. Her right arm is bent, with her hand placed on the back of her hip, that hand apparently clenched around an object, perhaps a baton, which is now missing. She wears a necklace with three large pendants, but is otherwise naked.
4) Experts have it that the "lost wax" method used by the metallurgist involved carving the sculpture out of wax, then covering it in wet clay. Once the clay was dried, holes were bored into the mould and the mouldwas heated, melting the wax. The empty mold was then filled with a melted mixture of copper and tin. After that cooled, the mould was broken, revealing the lady.
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| "Dancing Girl" (Photo credit: Google) |
5) According to National Museum of India website, "The statue is suggestive of two major breakthroughs. One, that the Indus artists knew metal blending and casting and perhaps other technical aspects of metallurgy, and two, that a well developed society Indus people had innovated dance and other performing arts as modes of entertainment".
6) According to British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, "There is her little Baluchi-style face with pouting lips and insolent look in the eye. She's about 15-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."
7) Petitioner Javed Iqbal Jaffrey claimed that the statue is the property of the Lahore Museum. “It was taken to India around 60 years ago at the request of the National Arts Council, Delhi, and was never brought back,” a report in Dawn said.
8) On October 10, he called for a suo motu action by the court.
9) He contended the 5,000-year-old statue enjoyed the same historical importance in Pakistan as Mona Lisa in Europe.
10) Jamal Shah, director general of the Pakistan National Museum of Arts, in a statement said a letter would be written to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to bring the statue back.