INDIA, GANGETIC PLAINS, 2ND MILLENIUM BCE

This rare work in abstracted human shape has a distinctive dome-shaped head, wide arms which curve inwards, and tapered legs. Although the function of sculptures such as these is unknown, they may have been used for religious or decorative purposes. As unalloyed copper is a soft metal, it is unlikely that these would have been functional as a tool or weapon.
Figures such as these were discovered in copper hoards throughout northern India, and have been attributed to an indigenous culture in the Gangetic Basin during the first half of the second millennium BCE.
Compare the style and proportions of the torso with one of three additional copper anthropomorphs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no. 2001.433.5).