MessageToEagle.com – Not much is known about this very unique and complex artifact that is called “The lady of the spiked throne”.
The mysterious artifact from Indus-Saraswati civilization dates back to 2700 B.C.
The absence of data concerning the object’s archaeological context makes it difficult to determine its true origin and purpose. The artifact was first studied by Massimo Vidale, an Italian archaeologist who came across it more or less by accident.
“In Autumn 2009, I was invited by a private collector to see an artifact that was mentioned as unique and very complex, and reportedly belonged to the cultural sphere of the Indus civilization.
I do not have professional links with the antique market and the world of private collectors, but the descriptions I had of the find were so puzzling that for once I accepted the invitation to examine the new find.
I was generously hosted by the family of the collector and what I saw fully rewarded the trip and the time.
There I spend two whole days, looking in detail to the most amazing and better preserved terracotta group sculpture of the 3rd millennium I had ever seen.
In this case the find is so exceptional, and its archaeological and historical implications so important, that to bury forever the information in the shelves of a private collector would only add damage to damage, ” Massimo Vidale said.
“The object – the ‘cow-boat’, as we came to call it informally; the author of the photographs still calls it ‘the wackiest thing I have ever seen’ – may spread a new, if still controversial light on the problem of the use of a well-known class of anthropomorphic figurines of the upper Indus basin in the first half of the 3rd millennium cal BC.” At first Vidale and his colleagues were skeptical and questioned the artifacts authenticity, but after several test were conducted it became clear that this intriguing and unbroken object was not a modern forgery.
“Excluding the bull’shead, it contains a total number of 15 figures in various attires and attitudes, which seem to move together in the same vehicle, a boat, following our first impressions, or a kind of large chariot, as we shall see, is hard to say. They form a group scene, strongly recalling an official procession. In contrast with their container, the figurines show residual traces of bright colours such as red, yellow, and a bluish-black, most probably applied after firing,” Vidale writes in his science paper.
As you can see, on top, the bull has a solar symbol – a thick, small circle filled by a solid dot, with a series of thinner segments, regularly spaced, as the rays.
This bull image is one of the most impressive ever found in the archaeology of the Indus river basin. As remarked by J.M. Kenoyer while commenting on the question of the Indus “lord of the animals’ and the anthropomorphic horned personages well known in the iconography of the first half of the 3rd millennium cal BC …Large horns could represent the power, strength, and virility of the animal; by analogy whoever wore a headdress with the horns would possess similar attributes. The anthropomorphic figures with these headdresses may depict powerful hunters or shamans, or even some form of water buffalo or cattle deity”.
In the central part of the model, eight human figurines sit on simple cube-like stools fixed to the inner face of the broadside.
The measurements show that not only the figurines, but the stools, as well, are on average higher for females than for males. All figurines sit in the distinctive position that characterize these small terracotta statuettes, even though commonly found in settlements contexts where they were never associated terracotta stools, chairs or vehicles.
“Some of the ‘male attendants’ seem to have the same tie-like hanging ornament of the male figurines sitting with the female ones in the central group. The ornament this time is often associated to a tall fanlike head-gear, with a slightly shorter fold or projection on its left side and the same hair fashion falling on the temples, down to shoulders, observed on the other images.
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It might have been a kind turban with and end stiffened and risen up. The wear a short conical gown marked by a dense series of thin vertical incisions that might suggest, in their turn, a stiffened cloth.
This peculiar element of dress, as far as I know, does not appear in other terracotta figurines of the same fashion, ” Vidale said.
There is no material evidence in Indus archaeology of terracotta models of four-wheeled or other types of carts larger than the heavy two-wheeled carts today in use in Pakistan.
What was the purpose of the artifact? Was it used in rituals or does it have an even deeper meaning of which we are currently unaware? Is it a boat, a cart or perhaps a Vimana?
For the moment the “Lady Of The Spiked Throne” remains an unsolved ancient mystery.
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