
Collection Online as of January 25, 2021
Copper
Overall: 23.5 x 36.5 x 0.5 cm (9 1/4 x 14 3/8 x 3/16 in.)
Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund 2004.31
242A Ancient India
Among the few works of art known from the first millennium BC in India, anthropomorphs such as this fine example have an abstract formal appeal, but their meaning and function remain mysterious. They were made during the approximately 1,500-year long period of time between the protohistoric Indus Valley civilization, which flourished between about 2,800–1,800 BC, and the Maurya period (322–187 BC), when works of art must have been made in perishable materials that no longer survive.