Lintel with dancers and musicians entertaining a nobleman

Female dancers perform before a princely male figure. The three dancers on the left move in strict unison, matching one another’s posture and gestures, and the single dancer to the right mirrors their pose. These dancers are disciplined artists who, we may imagine, have undertaken rigorous practice of the kind seen in recent centuries (and sometimes still) in Javanese, Balinese, Thai, and Cambodian court settings.

The row of airborne wild geese indicates that the scene is transpiring in a heavenly realm. Thus, the dancers and musicians are celestial, not earthly, beings.

While the male figure can’t be identified, it is clear that he is of high status because of the platform he sits on, the parasols flanking him, and the attendant wielding a fan. A princely figure being entertained by celestial dancers might be thought to be Indra, the king of the gods, but this figure lacks Indra’s frequent attributes of an elephant and a thunderbolt.