Archaeologists attribute the earliest civilisation to the ‘Fertile Crescent’, an area of land that stretched from Egypt in the west to Pakistan and northern India in the east. At the eastern edge of this crescent was one of the earliest advanced civilisations in human history, the Indus Valley civilization. Together with Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley built the first cities, and created the first complex hierarchical societies. Centred on the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, the Indus Valley had created an urban civilisation with complex city-planning, elaborate drainage and water supply systems, decorated houses of baked mudbricks, and elaborate public buildings. At their height, these cities could have housed between 30,000 and 60,000 people – the largest cities in the world for their time period. The civilisation lasted for around 2,000 years, during which we see a flourishing of the creative arts expressed through painted pottery and developed sculpture. However, it was not to last, and eventually the aridification of the region prompted the demise of the great Indus cities, and with it the end of their distinctive culture.

Reconstructing the religion of the early Indus Valley is a difficult task, especially given that the Indus Valley writing system remains undeciphered. A number of attempts have sought to retroactively impose the ideas of later Hinduism on the Indus Valley religion, though this is a controversial idea. A number of features have been tentatively identified, however: a great male god; a mother or fertility goddess; deification or veneration of animals and plants; symbolic representations of the phallus and vulva; and, the use of baths and water in religious practice. No temples or other obviously religious structures survive from the Indus Valley, and currently only the Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro is widely thought to have been used in religious practices. Similarly, a number of terracotta figures from the Indus Valley have been broadly categorised as depictions of the ‘Mother Goddess’, but interpretations of these have ranged from religious idol to children’s doll.

This small figure is executed in exquisite detail. The quality of terracottas from the Indus Valley is variable, as is the level of detail of each figure. This figure represents a naked woman in a seated position, her legs stretched out before her. She has a long, slender figure, an impossibly thin waist, and large breasts and buttocks. Her arms are held by her side and at right angles, her fingers splayed. Her face is more crudely formed, with a large triangular nose made by pinching the clay, round eyes outlined with a raised rim, and thick lips parted in a smile. Her chest-length hair is drawn over one shoulder, and pushed back over the other, hanging loosely at her back. She wears two necklaces – a choker and a pendant – which are decorated with a series of incised dots, as well as a striped headband and hairpiece, and anklets. The emphasis on her breasts and hips may support the identification as a ‘Mother Goddess’, emphasising those body parts associated with the bearing and raising of children. We are, however, unable to conclusively say: was she a venerated deity? Or was she an Indus Valley Barbie?