A priest, a king or both?
A small but significant stone bust of a bearded man, known as the Priest King, was found in Mohenjo-Daro in 1925-26, at the depth of around 1.5 metres, beneath debris and alluvium. This 6.9-inch statue, in a collection of the National Museum of Pakistan, Karachi, exudes a sulky aura of power, and wears what appears to be a regal mantle with trefoil patterns. The only tangible item that can be directly linked to the Indus rulers is the mantle, and even here the association is totally speculative.
Despite looking incomplete, the figurine was solidified by being burned or roasted at a temperature of over 1000 °C to harden the steatite employed in its carving. The long crack that ran down the right side of the face and was already present when it was unearthed may have happened because of the excavation or a subsequent shock. The patterned robe breaks unevenly at the bottom of the fabric, reaching more to the rear than to the front. Although the tip of the nose is also broken, the body, as a whole, is in good condition.
In contrast, other more complete Indus Valley Civilisation male figures show a seated position with, sporadically, one raised knee and the other leg tucked behind the torso. The Priest King may have first existed in that shape. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, an American archaeologist, George F Dales Jr, Barbara A Dales, professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and other archaeologists believe that monuments like this one and others were “broken and destroyed” on purpose when their subjects lost their position. The eyes are broad but narrow and appear closed, suggesting that the pupils were inlaid with shell fragments or stone.
The ears are fashioned like other stone heads from the same area. There are several theories about whether it was an elaborate headpiece, possibly constructed of other materials and used only sometimes, or a carved bun. The top of the head has a flat back, maybe to allow the attachment of something that has been lost. Below the ears, there could have been two holes where a necklace or something else may have been attached.
Ernest J H Mackay, the archaeologist leading the excavations at the site when the piece was found, thought it might represent a “priest”. A few other archaeologists supported Mackay's hypothesis that the head injury led to the flattening. It might have been designed to fit into a gap where the roof sloped.
Although the Priest King of Mohenjo-Daro may have a realistic appearance, Mackay wrote, "The only stone image that has been discovered so far that can without a doubt be said to be that of a deity is a white steatite head and bust that is currently measuring about seven inches in height but was once much more significant because the lower part of it is missing.” This person's robe is carved in relief with a trefoil pattern, which is clearly a sacred symbol and frequently seen in Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. It is carried over the left shoulder and under the right arm. The statue's short beard and shaven upper lip are similar to other gods and men figures found in ancient Sumer. The middle section of the hair, which is practically cropped, is held in place by a fillet wrapped around the head and two long ends hanging behind.
Given that it is wearing a garment adorned with a sacred object and assumed to have been wearing a necklace, Mackay noted in 1935, “This image cannot possibly be of a human being, not even a priest.”
The assumption that the figure is a religious person may be supported by the precise depiction of the man's eyes as set on the tip of his nose, a yoga pose, and the similarity of the robe worn over one shoulder to subsequent attire, notably the Buddhist Samghati (a double layer’s robe of Buddhist Monks used as an outer cloak for various important occasions). The figure wears a toga-like outer garment that only covers one shoulder.
The raised trefoil and other shapes were once filled with a red substance, probably some sort of paste. The inside of the shapes was left rough to aid in adherence. The area around the relief shapes showed evidence of a substance at the time of the initial excavation, albeit it was blackish and may have once served as a green or blue background for the relief shapes.
The sculpture was found in Mohenjo-Daro at the depth of 1.37 metres by archaeologist Kashinath Narayan Dikshit, who would later become the head of the Archaeological Survey of India. The site was a small enclosure with numerous strange parallel walls, possibly the hypocaust for a hammam or sauna. It is assumed that the sculpture fell or rolled into that location when the city started to fall apart; it was found in a small corridor between two of the walls, which doesn't seem to be the place where it would typically be.
Gregory Louis Possehl, a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, was involved in the excavations of the Indus Valley Civilization in India and Pakistan since 1964, and was an author of many books and articles on the Indus Civilization. Possehl was of the view that the way the facial hair was handled suggested that the figure was not finished. The top lip has been raised in a similar manner above the level of the surrounding skin, but moustache's hair has not been added; it is just smooth. Parallel lines have been used to sculpt the prominent beard painstakingly. The lines for the beard are slightly more subtle on the cheeks, where they were probably smoothed out in the finished piece.
The artefacts from Mohenjo-Daro were initially sent to the Lahore Museum. They were later moved to New Delhi, the new location of the Archaeological Survey of India and the capital of British India, to showcase them in the Central Imperial Museum. In the wake of India's 1947 partition, the place finally evolved into the National Museum of India. The new Pakistani government requested the return of the Indus Valley Civilisation artefacts because nearly all of them were found in locations in Pakistan, such as Mohenjo-Daro, by the time of Pakistan's independence. The statue was only returned to Pakistan following the 1972 Shimla Agreement between Pakistan and India, represented by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the then president of Pakistan, and Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister of India. According to an informal press source, Prime Minister Gandhi told President Bhutto that he could only pick one of the two sculptures—the Priest King or the Dancing Girl, the other most renowned Indus artefact found at Mohenjo-Daro. Bhutto had already made up his mind in favour of the Priest King.
Priest or King?
The Indus monarchs, still unidentified, left a lasting impression on every facet of valley life. We don't even know what kind of government they had. Hereditary monarchy, however, is optional. Kings are naturally selfish people who like to show off by building lavish palaces, mausoleums, and other magnificent structures absent from the Indus cities. Persistence of regular citadel construction across several periods in vastly disparate places further disproves royal power, which is susceptible to whims. The Indus Valley also shows no indications of a significant military presence, which we would expect in a monarchy, given that the king was primarily a warlord.
The Indus Civilisation put an astonishingly low priority on warfare, and its military technology trailed behind other contemporary civilisations. Although a variety of weapons have been found in the Indus Valley, including stone maces, copper and bronze spears, arrowheads, daggers, and baked clay pellets for slings, most of them were not made well enough to be useful as tools of war and were probably only used ceremonially or for hunting. John Marshall, archaeologist, mentions spearheads as having strangely simple designs, such as thin and broad blades without a supporting midrib and tangs rather than sockets. There were no swords. There weren't many arrows, and shields, body armour and helmets weren't even present. Kings could scarcely have succeeded in a culture that placed little significance on military matters.
Theocracy, governed by a small, socially exclusive priestly caste or class, headed by a Priest King or a council of high priests, is the most likely explanation for all aspects of the Indus government, including the monarchy. This view is further strengthened by the fact that Priest Kings ruled in Mesopotamia. It seems unlikely that the Indus Civilisation would have had a political system that was very different from those of the civilisations to its immediate north. According to the famous British archaeologist Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler, the Priest King or governor of Sumer and Akkad was similar to how the kings of Harappa administered the city.
In Sumer, the priesthood or a Priest King, or the main deity, maintained the city’s prosperity and order. The high temple functioned as the focus of civic attention as it was the centre of a sophisticated and painstakingly constructed secular administration with heavenly approval.
The Indus and Harappa civilisations’ “texture has a distinctively theocratic flavour,” according to Stuart Ernest Piggott, another very famous British archaeologist. The continuity of Indus society and polity over time, along with the relatively easy and non-coercive enforcement of civic laws in Indus cities, implies that the people internalised the customs, practises, and laws through long-term habit, as is typical in theocracies, where secular institutions take on the characteristics of an unchanging cosmic order. This explains why the Indus society is apathetic and traditional.
The nature of the Indus state is even more enigmatic than how the Indus administration functions. Wheeler confidently asserts that the emergence of the Roman Empire and the Indus Valley Civilization represent the grandest political experiments in history. The stability of material culture and societal standards across the civilisation's geographical realm, as well as the near complete similarity between the architectural styles of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, the supposed twin capitals of the empire, are thought to be best explained by this idea. But there are equally compelling arguments against the idea of an empire. The Indus dominion was too big to be run appropriately by a centralised authority in prehistoric times due to the vast distances involved and the slowness of early transportation. For instance, it would have taken a messenger well over a month to get from Harappa to Mohenjo-Daro. Therefore, a theory put forth by some researchers suggests that the region was divided into two or more different city-states, much like Mesopotamia.
There are problems with this notion as well. Even though seeking glorification is a common characteristic of political authority, why is there no evidence of conflict amongst the several city-states in the Indus Valley, as in Mesopotamia? Furthermore, amid an environment of political rivalry, how could total cultural and governmental uniformity, like that found in the Indus Valley, have persisted for several centuries? A single sociopolitical force controlled the whole Indus Civilisation territory. In light of that, it seems pretty likely that the region was divided into autonomous but not independent city-states, governed by a priestly caste that kept social and political order and cultural consistency.
The writer is a Lahore based freelancer, author, educationist, brand strategist, local historian and journalist. He can be reached at arshadawan@msn.com. All information and facts provided are the sole responsibility of the writer.