Figurines

The charming Harappan terra-cottas are very different from the sculptures. They are often quite crudely modeled, with tubular arms, pinched-out noses, and clay blobs and strips attached to represent everything from eyes and mouths to headgear, jewelry, or the markings on animals, but they are brimming with vitality.

Some are models from the real world: posed standing women or seated men in their finery or women engaged in everyday tasks; carts loaded with miniature pots, complete with driver and team of draft bullocks, among the most delightful of the Indus products; and a host of animals, particularly bulls, but also pets, domestic animals, birds, and wild creatures such as rhinos. A charming figurine from Harappa shows a dog in a decorated collar on its hind legs begging. Some had moving parts, such as bulls with a separate bobbing head or animals on wheels, and were presumably children's toys. While figurines of people were often scantily clad, great attention was paid to details of their often elaborate hairstyles, headdresses, and jewelry. Other figurines are caricatures of reality or perhaps characters from folktales; these include figures with animal heads and vaguely human potbellied bodies; one delightful example of the genre has a trumpet for a nose and is covering its face with both arms. Some of the animal figurines, however, are of a higher standard, very carefully modeled with attention to detail and quite true to life.

Possible Amulets. A number of tiny animals molded in faience or carved in shell or ivory may have been amulets. Often carefully modeled and realistic, they include creatures not known from the terra-cottas, such as fish, monkeys, hares, and squirrels.