AN INDUS VALLEY BONE GAME COUNTER CIRCA 2600–1900 BCE

拍品描述

AN INDUS VALLEY BONE GAME COUNTER, CIRCA 2600-1900 BCE Of elongated tapering form with a rounded upper terminal and a narrow lower point, carved from a flat section of bone with one face decorated and the reverse left plain. The decorated upper register is framed above and below by pairs of incised parallel lines, enclosing a field worked entirely with ring-and-dot motifs: two vertical columns of four concentric circles flank the lateral edges, while the central field carries a looser cluster of similar rings interspersed with two deeper drilled perforations. The lower two-thirds of the body is undecorated, the surface smoothed but retaining the natural grain and warm honey tone of the bone, with earthen encrustation in the recesses of the carved register. The ring-and-dot motif, executed with a centred bow-drill or compass-cutter, is among the most widespread ornamental devices in the bone, ivory and shell repertoire of the Indus Valley civilisation, recurring on gaming pieces, dice, hairpins, kohl rods, and inlays recovered from Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Chanhu-daro and Lothal. Its function here appears partly decorative and partly identifying: the arrangement of the rings, and the two true perforations set among them, may have distinguished this counter from others in a paired or opposing set. The pointed lower terminal, worn smooth, suggests the piece was designed to be stood upright in a board or held between the fingers in play. Bone was a working material of considerable importance in Harappan urban craft, exploited alongside ivory and shell for small personal and recreational objects. The standardisation of forms across the major Indus sites, and the recurrence of board games, dice and counters in domestic contexts, points to a shared urban culture in which gaming occupied a recognised place in daily life. The ring-and-dot ornament itself, once established in the Indus repertoire, would persist across South and Western Asia for millennia, surviving into Iron Age, Hellenistic and early Islamic bone-working traditions. This counter exemplifies the disciplined small-scale bone craft of the mature Harappan phase, in which a restricted vocabulary of drilled ornament was deployed with consistency across a wide geographic network. Its survival in legible condition, with the decorated register intact and the form complete, places it among the more articulate examples of a class of object usually recovered in fragments. Dimensions: Length: 7cm

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