Representing the Indus Body: Sex, Gender, Sexuality, and the Anthropomorphic Terracotta Figurines from Harappa

Abstract

Despite significant theoretical advances, there is still no universally accepted paradigm for the investigation of sex and gender and little critical research on the subject in South Asian archaeology. Without deciphered texts, artifacts such as figurines that provide body imagery are invaluable in understanding these conceptions in ancient societies. This paper is a critical examination of representations of the body in the Indus civilization, focusing on the anthropomorphic terracotta figurines from Harappa and using more flexible notions of sex, gender, and sexuality to explore Indus conceptions of sexual difference as it relates to other aspects of social difference and identity. The meaningful combinations of the attributes of the represented Indus body may reflect complex and fluid concepts of sex, gender, and sexuality in Indus society that differed from later traditions and varied beneath the cultural veneer of the Indus Civilization with its unique ideology.

Material Matters: Representation and Materiality of the Harappan Body

“…Unlike some other Neolithic and Chalcolithic figurine traditions, the earliest clay and terracotta figurines are increasingly elaborately detailed and well-fired with little truncation and/or abstraction of the human body, and the stone figurines become even more rare over time at Mehrgarh (see Jarrige 1991). A major premise of the author's studies of the figurines from Harappa (Clark 2003(Clark , 2005(Clark , 2007a is that the figurines, while iconographic or art objects, serve not as simple naturalistic reflections of Indus society but as media of communication and identification in their original social contexts. Although compelling arguments against art as visual communication suggest that art is different from language and that only language can convey "meaning" (Gell 1998: 6), archeological context can provide artifacts such as figurines with evidence of their original social contexts, including functions and uses or meanings.…”

“…Material representations of the body also may provide clues to ancient people's conceptions through close examination of their choices in the materialization and construction of themselves (see Clark 2003). In the absence of readable texts or living informants, the Harappans' material biographies-the construction, use(s), and disposal of figurines and other artifacts-are the sole "texts" available to us as archeologists and interpreters of this ancient society.…”

“…Representations of the Harappan body and Harappan norms of dress and ornamentation have been discussed extensively elsewhere (Clark 2003(Clark , 2007a and the details need not be repeated here. In general, the Harappan body as represented in most of the terracotta figurines is rather schematic, sometimes without features such as fingers or even eyes (see Fig.…”

“…This is not necessarily the sexual dualism found in Hinduism (e.g., Marshall 1931), but perhaps something like later Vedic notions of balance in what were considered similar and dangerous body fluids of the upper and lower bodies (O'Flaherty 1980: 55). The equivalence in the representation of male and female upper bodies and the mixed sex/gender attributes on a few figurines suggests a complex and fluid conception of sex and gender in the Harappan world (see Clark 2003).…”

Children Playing and Learning: Crafting Ceramics in Ancient Indor Khera

“…Much of the work that has been initiated on gender and children has not found resonance so far within South Asian archaeology, although some issues of gender, particularly through representation in the form of Harappan terracotta human figurines, have had nuanced readings (Clark 2003). Archaeologically, infants and children are visible directly through burials.…”