ankind’s intimate affair with material likely began around 3,000,000 BCE. Modern explorers came across a small water-worn pebble in the South African cave of Makapansgat that bears a resemblance to the human face. The nearest known source of that variety of ironstone is twenty miles away from the cave where it was discovered, lying next to the bones of early humans. Three million years ago, there were no tools and skills; not even the understanding required to modify an existing material into something else – but our ancestors might have noticed a link between their own faces and the stone lying near a riverside and transported it to their shelter.

That humble initiative led to the transformation of everything that surrounds human beings, as well as the development of instruments to aid in that task – continuing all the way to the Age of AI. In the first phase of recorded history, referred to as the Palaeolithic Age, stone was used to produce divine figures, functional objects, weapons, jewellery and surfaces for carving images. The limitations of stone were eventually overcome once mankind learnt to combine two alloys to develop bronze – a relatively controllable and reliable substance. Hence, the period between the Stone Age and Iron Age is termed the Bronze Age.

Recently, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam held the exhibition Asian Bronze: 4000 Years of Beauty (September 4, 2024 –January 12, 2025), featuring bronze pieces dating from the 3rd Millennium BCE to the 2nd Millennium CE. The display included objects from ancient sites such as Uruk and Susa (Mesopotamia), Mohenjo-daro and Harappa (Indus Valley), as well as later regions and periods including China, Central India, Far East Asia and Japan.

More than seventy artefacts from the exhibition were “presented, with the forms and techniques that are often unique to the regions in which the objects were made.” This allowed for an appreciation of the diversity in style, iconography, symbolism, utility and methods of manufacture – alongside a chronological narrative – through pieces on loan from various museums and collections. These included the National Museum of Pakistan (Karachi), the V&A Museum (London), Musée Guimet (Paris), Bihar Museum (Patna), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) and the National Museum (New Delhi), among others.

What connects these outstanding specimens of bronze – ritualistic statues, ornaments, decoration pieces, examples of pottery, weapons, animals and primitive tools – is the method of bronze casting. Still popular among sculptors of the Twenty-first Century, largely due to its surface treatment and the allure of its beautiful patina, this technique has ancient roots. As noted, “the earliest copper artefacts yet known worldwide can be dated to between 9000 and 8000 BCE … excavated from the ancient farming communities in southeast Anatolia and Iran.”

The terrain of present-day Pakistan holds particular significance in the narrative of this material’s exploration. “Copper beads similar to those found in Iran have also been discovered in graves at the site of Mehrgarh in Pakistan and are dated around 6000 BCE. These are currently the earliest known traces of the use of copper in Asia.”

The exhibition illustrated how copper was favoured by artisans for crafting a wide variety of objects. One assumes that ancient communities must have rendered images in other materials as well, but due to its physical resilience and durability, most copper artefacts – along with stone and earthenware – have survived thousands of years.

History and heritage are like a river, or the soul of a creative individual, flowing freely across territories and through time.

The Indus Valley Civilisation is famously represented by two iconic figures from Mohenjo-daro: the stone Priest King (housed in the National Museum of Pakistan, Karachi) and the bronze Dancing Girl (kept at the National Museum, New Delhi). However, the Asian Bronze exhibition at the Rijksmuseum also featured another female figure from Mohenjo-daro – strikingly similar to the Dancing Girl, with her left arm posed in a posture identical to the one in New Delhi. This bronze (3.4 cm x 4.7 cm) belongs to the National Museum of Pakistan, Karachi – a fact that, probably, not many Pakistanis – including the writer of these lines – were aware of.

Two other historic objects from Pakistan were also sent on loan – primarily due to the efforts of Suljuk Mustansar Tarar, the Pakistani ambassador to The Hague, as acknowledged in the exhibition catalogue – and were included in the ten thematic sections of the exhibition.

One of the two was a mirror discovered at Mohenjo-daro, displayed in the section titled Light and Reflection, alongside five other mirrors ranging from 8th-Century China to a modern mirror forged in Aranmula, India. The latter was crafted using an ancient technique and specially commissioned by the Rijksmuseum in 2024.

The third bronze object that travelled from the National Museum of Pakistan, Karachi, to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was a 6^th-7th Century Brahma statue from Mirpur Khas. It was featured in the section Heaven and Earth I, alongside other statues of deities – for instance, the iconic Shiva Nataraja of Tamil Nadu. Belonging to the Chola dynasty, this exquisite sculpture depicts the Lord of Dance, spinning on one leg poised atop a dwarf symbolising ignorance. Shiva extends all four arms, two of which touch the flaming ring of glory that surrounds the entire composition.

One can draw a comparison between this sculpture and The Discus Thrower by the Greek sculptor Myron, from 450 BCE. In both works of art, the movement of the human body is captured in a rhythmic stillness – as if the Hindu god and the Greek athlete are suspended in motion, their energy frozen in time.

Another work, discovered in Swat but now housed in an Asian art museum in Berlin, is the 7th-Century Vishnu Vaikuntha, which was also displayed in the Amsterdam exhibition celebrating Asian achievements in bronze. Other noteworthy inclusions were anthropomorphic figures from the Ganges Valley, as well as an axe and a harpoon from Bisauli, Uttar Pradesh, India. These early attempts at fabricating functional objects offer valuable insights into the life patterns, belief systems, economic cycles, communal relationships and aesthetic sensibilities of the people who created them.

The items featured in Asian Bronze: 4000 Years of Beauty were thoughtfully categorised under themes such as Food and Drink, Scent, Light and Reflection, Sound, Strength and Continuity – each revealing the dimensions, demands and desires of human beings as members of a collective. These categories explored how communities shared concepts, faiths, crafts and traditions within themselves and with those beyond their cultural boundaries. Thus, Buddha appeared in bronzes from India, Pakistan, China, Thailand and Japan, representing various periods and regional interpretations.

The continuity of need and style was especially evident in two toy figurines from Daimabad, Maharashtra, dated circa 2000–1500 BCE and 2000 BCE. One depicts a buffalo mounted on a cart, designed to be pulled by children, and the other features a stylised linear figure riding a two-wheeled chariot drawn by a pair of horses. When compared in scale, material, imagery and function, these toys are remarkably similar to miniature figurines still manufactured in India and sold in state handicraft centres across New Delhi and other major cities.

This brilliantly curated and sensitively executed exhibition affirms a deeper truth: that history and heritage are like a river, or the soul of a creative individual, flowing freely across territories and through time.

The writer is a visual artist, an art critic, a curator and a professor at the School of Visual Arts and Design, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. He can be contacted on quddusmirza@gmail.com.