Ancient & Medieval History · Harappan Economy, Trade, Society & Crafts
The concept being tested: Indus Valley Civilization material culture and Bronze Age metallurgy.
The famous female figurine known as 'Dancing Girl', found at Mohenjo-daro, is made of
The Dancing Girl statuette, unearthed by Ernest Mackay in 1926 from the HR area of Mohenjo-daro, is a bronze figurine roughly 10.5 cm tall, cast using the lost-wax (cire-perdue) technique. In this method, a wax model is coated in clay, the wax is melted out through a channel, and molten bronze is poured into the resulting mould, which is then broken to free the metal image. The figure shows a nude young woman standing with one arm bangled from wrist to shoulder and the other resting on her hip, in a confident, naturalistic pose that is unusual for the largely stylised art of the period. Its survival and fine modelling are cited as the clearest evidence that Indus artisans had mastered bronze alloying and casting well before comparable traditions elsewhere, which is why the object is routinely used to illustrate Harappan metallurgy in the UPSC syllabus.
What UPSC was testing
UPSC uses this figurine to test whether aspirants can separate the different materials of Harappan material culture: bronze for cast figures like the Dancing Girl, terracotta for the Mother Goddess figurines and toys, steatite for the seals, and carnelian or faience for beads and jewellery.
How often this comes up
This concept has appeared 5 times in UPSC Prelims General Studies Paper I between 2015 and 2025 — in 2017, 2019, 2021, 2023 and 2025.
The option-by-option autopsy for this question — why each of the other three is wrong, and which neighbouring concept each one was built from — is in the app.