The ''Priest-King'', in Pakistan often ''King-Priest'', is a small male figure sculpted in

steatite Soapstone (also known as steatite or soaprock) is a talc-schist, which is a type of metamorphic rock. It is composed largely of the magnesium rich mineral talc. It is produced by dynamothermal metamorphism and metasomatism, which occur in the ...

found during the excavation of the ruined

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

city of

Mohenjo-daro Mohenjo-daro (; sd, موئن جو دڙو'', ''meaning 'Mound of the Dead Men';Sindh,

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

, in 1925–26. It is dated to around 2000–1900 BCE, in Mohenjo-daro's Late Period, and is "the most famous stone sculpture" of the Indus Valley civilization ("IVC"). It is now in the collection of the National Museum of Pakistan as NMP 50-852. It is widely admired, as "the sculptor combined naturalistic detail with stylized forms to create a powerful image that appears much bigger than it actually is,"Aruz, 385 and excepting possibly the Pashupati Seal, "nothing has come to symbolize the Indus Civilization better." The sculpture shows a neatly bearded man with a fillet around his head, possibly all that is left of a once-elaborate hairstyle or headdress; his hair is combed back. He wears an

armband An armband is a piece of material worn around the arm. They may be worn for pure ornamentation, or to mark the wearer as belonging to group, or as insignia having a certain rank, status, office or role, or being in a particular state or condit ...

, and a

cloak A cloak is a type of loose garment worn over clothing, mostly but not always as outerwear for outdoor wear, serving the same purpose as an overcoat, protecting the wearer from the weather. It may form part of a uniform. Cloaks have been and ...

with drilled

trefoil A trefoil () is a graphic form composed of the outline of three overlapping rings, used in architecture and Christian symbolism, among other areas. The term is also applied to other symbols with a threefold shape. A similar shape with four ring ...

, single circle and double circle motifs, which show traces of red. His eyes might have originally been inlaid. The sculpture is incomplete, broken off at the bottom, and possibly unfinished. Originally it was presumably larger and probably was a full-length seated or kneeling figure. As it is now, it is high.Possehl, 114 Though the name ''Priest-King'' is now generally used, it is highly speculative, and "without foundation". Ernest J. H. Mackay, the archaeologist leading the excavations at the site when the piece was found, thought it might represent a "priest". Sir John Marshall, head of the pre- Partition

Archaeological Survey of India The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is an Indian government agency that is responsible for archaeological research and the conservation and preservation of cultural historical monuments in the country. It was founded in 1861 by Alexand ...

("ASI") at the time, regarded it as possibly a "king-priest", but it appears to have been his successor, Sir

Mortimer Wheeler Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler CH CIE MC TD (10 September 1890 – 22 July 1976) was a British archaeologist and officer in the British Army. Over the course of his career, he served as Director of both the National Museum of Wales an ...

, who was the first to use ''Priest-King''.Possehl, 115 An alternative designation for this and a few other IVC male figure sculptures is that they "are commemorative figures of clan leaders or ancestral figures". A replica is normally displayed at the National Museum of Pakistan, while the original is kept secure. Mr Bukhari, the director of the museum explained in 2015 "It’s a national symbol. We can’t take risks with it". The

Urdu language Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

meaning a sovereign or bishop (who is entitled to sit in a chair of state on ceremonial occasions).

Description

The statuette is carved in the soft mineral of steatite, and (despite being apparently unfinished) has been fired or baked at over 1000 °C to harden it. The long crack running down the right hand side of the face, already present when it was excavated, may have been caused by this, or by a later shock. There is an uneven break at the bottom of the piece, with the patterned robe continuing further down at the back than the front. The nose is also damaged at the tip, but many other areas are in good condition. It has been compared to other IVC male figures, more fully complete, which show a seated position, with in some cases one raised knee and the other leg tucked beneath the body. The ''Priest-King'' may have originally had this shape. Some archaeologists, including

Jonathan Mark Kenoyer Jonathan Mark Kenoyer (born 28 May 1952, in Shillong, India) is an American archaeologist and ''George F. Dales Jr. & Barbara A. Dales'' Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He earned his Bachelor of Arts, Master's ...

, believe that this and other statues were "broken and defaced" deliberately, as their subjects lost their prestige. The eyes are wide but narrow, apparently half-closed; there were probably inlaid pieces of shell or stone representing the pupils. The ears are very simply shaped, as on some other stone heads from the site. The back of the top of the head is flat, probably so that something now missing could be attached, and there are various theories as whether it was a carved "bun" or a more elaborate headdress, perhaps in other materials and only worn at times. Two holes below the ears may have been for attaching this, or perhaps a necklace. Mackay suggested the flattening was because the head was damaged, which few later writers agree with. Another possibility is that it was designed to fit into a niche with a sloping top. The figure wears a toga-like outer garment that only covers one shoulder. The interiors of the raised

and other shapes on this were originally filled with a red material, probably some type of paste. The interiors of the shapes were left rough, to help this adhere. The space around the shapes showed traces, at the time of the original excavation, of a material which by then was "blackish" but may originally have given a green or blue background to the relief shapes. Marshall's first thoughts on the IVC had been that the links with Mesopotamia had been very close, and his preliminary reports, up to 1926, called it the "Indo-Sumerian Civilization". He then realized this was wrong, and started to use "Indus Civilization". There has been much discussion of the possible relationship between the ''Priest-King'' and somewhat similar Mesopotamian figures. The art historian Benjamin Rowland concluded that "the plastic conception of the head in hard, mask-like planes and certain other technical details are fairly close, and yet not close enough to prove a real relationship".Rowland, 34 According to

Gregory Possehl Gregory Louis Possehl (July 21, 1941 – October 8, 2011) was a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and curator of the Asian Collections at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. ...

, it is the treatment of the facial hair in particular that suggests the figure was not fully finished. While the main beard is carefully worked with parallel lines, the upper lip is also raised above the level of the surrounding flesh, but no lines have been added to show moustache hair; it is simply smooth. On the cheeks the lines for the beard continue more faintly onto the cheek, which in a finished piece would probably have been smoothed away. Possible support for interpreting the figure as a religious person are the apparent representation of the eyes as fixed on the tip of his nose, a practice in

yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consci ...

, and the similarity of the robe worn over one shoulder to later garments, including the Buddhist '' saṃghāti''. The focus on the tip of the nose was noticed by one of Marshall's Indian assistants, and Marshall saw the same feature in the Pashupati seal.

Excavation and recent history

The sculpture was found at a depth of 1.37 metres by the archaeologist

Kashinath Narayan Dikshit Rao Bahadur Kashinath Narayan Dikshit (21 October 1889 – 12 August 1946) was an Indian archaeologist who served as Director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) from 1937 to 1944. Early life and education Dikshit was born ...

(later head of the ASI) in the "D-K B" area of the city, and given the find number DK-1909. The precise findspot was "a small enclosure with some curious parallel walls", possibly the

hypocaust A hypocaust ( la, hypocaustum) is a system of central heating in a building that produces and circulates hot air below the floor of a room, and may also warm the walls with a series of pipes through which the hot air passes. This air can warm th ...

for a ''

hammam A hammam ( ar, حمّام, translit=ḥammām, tr, hamam) or Turkish bath is a type of steam bath or a place of public bathing associated with the Islamic world. It is a prominent feature in the Islamic culture, culture of the Muslim world and ...

'' or

sauna A sauna (, ), or sudatory, is a small room or building designed as a place to experience dry or wet heat sessions, or an establishment with one or more of these facilities. The steam and high heat make the bathers perspire. A thermometer in a ...

. The sculpture was found in a small passage between two of these walls, but this seems unlikely as its normal position, and it is thought that it fell or rolled into this space as the city fell into ruin. The finds from Mohenjo-daro were first sent to the

Lahore Museum The Lahore Museum ( pa, ; ur, ; ''"Lahore Wonder House"'') is a museum located in Lahore, Pakistan. Founded in 1865 at a smaller location and opened in 1894 at its current location on The Mall in Lahore during the British colonial period, La ...

, but later transferred to

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Ho ...

, the new capital of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

, and the headquarters of the ASI, with a view to displaying them in the "Central Imperial Museum" that was planned. Eventually, after the partition of India in 1947, this was established as the

National Museum of India The National Museum in New Delhi, also known as the National Museum of India, is one of the largest museums in India. Established in 1949, it holds a variety of articles ranging from pre-historic era to modern works of art. It functions under ...

. The new Pakistani authorities requested the return of the IVC artefacts, as almost all of those found by the time of independence had come from sites, like Mohenjo-daro, that were now in Pakistan. The statue was only returned to Pakistan after the 1972

Simla Agreement The Simla Agreement, also spelled Shimla Agreement, was a peace treaty signed between India and Pakistan on 2 July 1972 in Shimla, the capital city of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It followed the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, which ...

between Pakistan and India, represented by their heads of government, respectively

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Zulfikar (or Zulfiqar) Ali Bhutto ( ur, , sd, ذوالفقار علي ڀٽو; 5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979), also known as Quaid-e-Awam ("the People's Leader"), was a Pakistani barrister, politician and statesman who served as the fourth ...

, the President of Pakistan, and Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India. According to a Pakistani archaeologist, Gandhi refused to return both the ''Priest-King'' and the other most iconic Indus sculpture, the ''Dancing Girl'', a smaller bronze sculpture also found at Mohenjo-daro, and told Bhutto he could only choose one of them. Moenjodaro - panoramio

The statue was exhibited in London at the exhibition of "The Art of India" at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1931 (Cat. 114), as was the ''Dancing Girl'' (Cat. 136). This first display of IVC finds outside India attracted considerable notice in the press. Other exhibitions include "Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus" in 2003, at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

in New York (Cat. 272a). Replicas of the statue are popular in Pakistan and beyond, and a replica that is much larger than the original has been erected at the entrance to the Mohenjo-daro site.

Context

Art

The statue is one of the "seven principal pieces of human sculpture from Mohenjo-daro". The others include two small full-length nude bronze female figures, both called "dancer"s by some, but alternative activities have been suggested, such as carrying offerings. There are also three male heads in

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

alabaster Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft, often used for carving, and is processed for plaster powder. Archaeologists and the stone processing industry use the word differently from geologists. The former use it in a wider sense that include ...

, apparently broken-off, and the headless figure of a ''Seated Man''. Various points of contrast and comparison between these pieces and the ''Priest-King'' have been proposed; there is a considerable variety in the depiction of details among them. The headless seated man may show the pose of the missing lower part of the ''Priest-King''. Very likely sculpture existed in wood, but none has survived. There are also very numerous small and simple

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

figures from all over the IVC, most female, generally similar to those produced over much of India later, indeed up to the present day. Elaborate headdresses are a notable feature of these. Steatite was widely used in the IVC; in one technique it was ground into to a paste, and then fired to make decorated beads, many of which were exported. It was also the main material used for carving

Indus seal The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 Common Era, BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form 2600 B ...

s, sometimes fired and sometimes not; many were carved then given a coating which was lightly fired. Because of some similarities with art from there, some scholars have suggested that the ''Priest-King'' and the handful of similar pieces found in IVC contexts may draw on traditions from further north, especially the contemporary culture known as the

Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (short BMAC) or Oxus Civilization, recently dated to c. 2250–1700 BC,Lyonnet, Bertille, and Nadezhda A. Dubova, (2020b)"Questioning the Oxus Civilization or Bactria- Margiana Archaeological Cultu ...

("BMAC"). Possibly the pieces were made for people from further north living in IVC cities. Unlike the IVC, the BMAC left some rich graves suggesting a considerable degree of social differentiation, and the large settlements excavated so far each centre on a large fortified complex. These were previously described as "temples", but were perhaps more likely the residence of a local ruler.

IVC politics

The absence of evidence of a powerful

ruling class In sociology, the ruling class of a society is the social class who set and decide the political and economic agenda of society. In Marxist philosophy, the ruling class are the capitalist social class who own the means of production and by exte ...

, despite abundant evidence of highly complex social organization, was one of the most striking aspects of the IVC cities for early excavators, and clear evidence in the usual forms of grand tombs and palaces remains lacking. Whether a ruling class was necessary in Bronze Age conditions to achieve large-scale urbanization remains an unsettled question, also related to the question of whether the IVC was a state, and if so, one state or several. Given the lack of evidence for a military-based monarch or ruling class, the model of some sort of

theocracy Theocracy is a form of government in which one or more deities are recognized as supreme ruling authorities, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries who manage the government's daily affairs. Etymology The word theocracy originates fr ...

was widely adopted by the early archaeologists. Priest King Models

This had support from

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

n archaeology, where indeed the earliest cities of Sumer are still thought to have had rulers combining political and religious roles. The British archaeologist

Stuart Piggott Stuart Ernest Piggott, (28 May 1910 – 23 September 1996) was a British archaeologist, best known for his work on prehistoric Wessex. Early life Piggott was born in Petersfield, Hampshire, the son of G. H. O. Piggott, and was educated t ...

, who was in India in the 1940s, thought the IVC was "a state ruled by priest-kings, wielding autocratic and absolute power from two main seats of government". Wheeler agreed, and asserted:

It can no longer be doubted that, whatever the source of their authority—and a dominant religious element can fairly be assumed—the lords of Harappa administered their city in a fashion not remote from that of the Priest-Kings or governors of Sumer and Akkad.

Wheeler saw the damage inflicted on the large male figures as deliberate, done during the violent overthrow of the IVC by Aryan invaders that he postulated, an explanation for the end of the IVC that is now generally discredited. In the 21st-century, power in the IVC tends to be seen as more widely spread, perhaps between families or clans, and possibly involving councils, and the decline of the cities as more gradual. Priest-King figures had also been postulated for the Minoan civilization, which was roughly contemporary with the IVC, rising and falling a few centuries later, but whose discovery and excavation had been a couple of decades earlier. Like the IVC, this had no readable texts, so archaeologists had only the physical evidence to go on. In contrast to the IVC, a number of large and lavishly decorated "palaces" were extremely evident, but there was an absence of indications as to who, if anyone, had lived in them. The head of the excavations, Sir

Arthur Evans Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. He is most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete. Based on ...

, had favoured the idea of a Priest-King, and had so titled a fragmentary

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

fresco found at

Knossos Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city. Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...

in 1901. This was even more speculative than Wheeler's doing so for the Mohenjo-daro figure; most scholars now doubt the fragments all come from a single figure at all, and '' Prince of the Lilies'' is now the usual title given to Evans's reconstruction. Like Marshall (who had trained under Evans), he used his "priest-king" as the image on the cover of his main book on his excavations.Beard, 20

Notes

References

*Aruz, Joan (ed), ''Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus'', 2003, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)
google books
(relevant IVC catalogue entries by Kenoyer, J.M.) * Beard, Mary, "Builder of Ruins", in ''Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures, and Innovations'', 2013, Liveright, , 0871407167
google books
* Craven, Roy C., ''Indian Art: A Concise History'', 1987, Thames & Hudson (Praeger in USA), * During Caspers, E. C. L., "The 'Priest King' from Moenjo-daro: An Iconographic Assessment", 1985, ''Annali dell'Istituto Universitario Orientale'', vol. 45, issue=1, pp. 19–24
PDF
*Green, A.S. "Killing the Priest-King: Addressing Egalitarianism in the Indus Civilization", ''Journal of Archaeological Research'', volume 29, 153–202, 2021
online
*"Harappa":

(by

), Harappa.com. retrieved 6 June 2021 *Humes, Cynthia Ann, "Hindutva, Mythistory, and Pseudoarchaeology", ''Numen'', 59(2/3), 178-201
JSTOR
* Kenoyer, J.M., Heuston, Kimberley Burton, ''The Ancient South Asian World'', 2005, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195222432, 0195222431
google books
*Kumar, Brinda
"“Exciting a Wider Interest in the Art of India”: The 1931 Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition"
''British Art Studies'', Issue 13 * Possehl, Gregory A., ''The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective'', 2002, AltaMira Press, ISBN 9780759101722, 0759101728
google books
*Rowland, Benjamin, ''The Art and Architecture of India: Buddhist, Hindu, Jain'', 1967 (3rd edn.), Pelican History of Art, Penguin, * Shamsie, Kamila
"The birth of a nation"
''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...

'' 1843 online magazine, 19 January 2015 (log-in required) * Singh, Kavita, "The Museum Is National", Chapter 4 in: Mathur, Saloni and Singh, Kavita (eds), ''No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: The Museum in South Asia'', 2015, Routledge
PDF on academia.edu
!--nb this is different from the article by the same author with the same title in ''India International Centre Quarterly'', vol. 29, no. 3/4, 2002, pp. 176–196
JSTOR
which does not mention this work--> * Singh, Upinder, ''A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century'', 2008, Pearson Longman, ISBN 9788131716779
google books
*Tunio, Hafeez
"With King Priest ‘in hiding’, Dancing Girl yet to take the road back home"
16 July 2012, ''

The Express Tribune ''The Express Tribune'' is a daily English language, English-language newspaper based in Pakistan. It is the flagship publication of the ''Daily Express (Urdu newspaper), Daily Express'' media group. It is Pakistan's only internationally affiliat ...

'' *Vidale, Massimo, ''Treasures from the Oxus: The Art and Civilization of Central Asia'', 2017, I.B. Tauris, ISBN 9781838609764
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