Scientist of the Day - Ernest Mackay

Excavations at Mohenjo-daro, late 1920s, photograph (harappa.com)

Ernest John Henry Mackay, an English archaeologist, died Oct. 2, 1943, at age 63.  Mackay was born in Bristol and was educated there, and was part of archaeological excavations in Egypt and Palestine, before joining the Archaeological Survey of India in 1925.  He was charged by the Director-General, John Marshall, to take over the excavations at Mohenjo-daro, on the Indus River in what is now Pakistan, but was then part of the British Raj in India.  Mohenjo-daro, part of the Harappan civilization, had been discovered by R.D. Banerji in 1922, but as was the way in British India, Banerji was then assigned elsewhere, and further excavations were turned over to Mackay, who was onsite from 1926 to 1931.

Sketch of Ernest Mackay, after a photo, Penn Museum, 2010 (penn.musum)

Mackay seems to have been a competent archaeologist, and he later wrote a well-regarded report on his years on the Indus River, Further Excavations at Mohehjo-daro (1937).  But I doubt that I would be writing about him were it not for an artifact that was discovered at Mohenjo-daro in 1926, while he was newly in charge: The Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro (third image). Mackay did not find her – she was no doubt unearthed by an Indian worker whose name has been lost, and turned over to a foreman whose name was also not recorded.  Mackay is just the only human involved whose name we know.

The Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro, ca 2500 BCE, found on Ernest Mackay’s watch as director of excavations, 1926, National Museum of India, Delhi (Wikimedia commons)

The Dancing Girl is a wee thing – just 4 inches tall – and she has lost her feet. But prop her up, and she is a beguiling figure.  She appears to be dancing. She has one arm on her bare hip, and the other arm is bedecked with bangles.  Her head is thrown back with an insouciant expression on her face.  There is nothing else like her from any early civilization.

Harappan artifacts on display in the National Museum of India, Delhi, with the Dancing Girl at the top (Wikimedia commons)

Unlike most Harappan artifacts, which are carved of stone, the Dancing Girl is made of bronze, and was the product of the lost-wax casting technique, the same method the later Greeks used to produced such masterpieces as the Riace warriors, which we discussed 6 weeks ago.  That this technique was available in 2500 BCE is surprising, and that it was used with such flair to produce the Dancing Girl is remarkable.  There are other bronze artifacts from Mohenjo-daro – we can see six on them in a recent photograph – but the Dancing Girl is in a league of her own, and properly placed at the pinnacle of the display (fourth image).

The Priest-King of Mohenjo-daro, soapstone sculpture, 2500 BCE, now in the National Museum of Pakistan, Karachi (harappa.com)

Another famous artifact found at Mohenjo-daro while Mackay was in charge is the Priest-King of Mohenjo-daro (fifth image).  This one is carved of steatite (soapstone) and is just short of 7 inches high. It commands admiration, but hardly delight.  Both the Dancing Girl and the Priest-King were kept in a museum in British India for 20 years; when British rule ended in 1947 and India was partitioned into India and Pakistan, the artifacts from Mohenjo-daro, now in Pakistan, were divided up by mutual agreement of the two government's arts councils. Pakistan chose the Priest-King; India got the Dancing Girl.  In the 2017 NFL Draft, the Chicago Bears chose Mitchell Trubisky, leaving Patrick Mahomes for the Kansas City Chiefs. Sometimes the second choice is the better choice.

Since we do not have Mackay’s 1937 written account of his time at Mohenjo-daro, I do not know what he thought of the Dancing Girl.  If I had discovered her, I would have had her image carved on my tombstone.  Who knows, perhaps Mackay did, since the location of his grave is unknown.

William B. Ashworth, Jr., Consultant for the History of Science, Linda Hall Library and Associate Professor emeritus, Department of History, University of Missouri-Kansas City. Comments or corrections are welcome; please direct to ashworthw@umkc.edu.