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Read the following poem. Answer the question that follow:

At the Museum

But is 2500 B. C. Harappa,

who cast in bronze a servant girl?

No one keeps records

of soldiers and slaves.

The sculptor knew this,

polishing the ache

off her fingers stiff

from washing the walls

and scrubbing the floors,

from stirring the meat

and the crushed asafoetida

in the bitter gourd.

But I'm grateful she smiled

at the sculptor,

as she smiles at me

in bronze,

a child who had to play women

to her lord

when the warm June rains

came to Harappa.

What did the sculptor preserve in casting in bronze the servant girl in 2500 B.C. Harappa?

Solution

Correct Option: 1

The sculptor immortalized a servant girl, someone whom official history considered unimportant. By casting her in bronze, her memory and humanity were preserved across 4,500 years. The poem is not primarily about preserving a civilization, soldiers, or food.

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