e created a new awareness of seasonal change and the powers of the earth, sun, and rain. The many female statuettes found in neolithic graves suggests that the religion of the people included the worship of fertility goddesses and the use of rites associated with seasonal regeneration (Fiero 7-8).
The Cyclades are a group of islands in the Aegean Sea where neolithic burial sites have been found. The figurines found tend to be stylized and abstract in form (Fiero 8). The clay figurines in this culture are in place of the neolithic idols made of clay from other regions. The marble quarried on these islands made it possible for the workshops of the culture to flourish. Products made by artisans on the Cyclades made their way to Crete and also to the mainland. Most of the statuettes are naked female figurines with their arms crossed over the abdomen, and they are generally not designed to stand erect. The eyes as well as the hair were represented by painting. The tombs of the Cyclades have also yielded rectangular marble palettes and lumps of red matter for coloring, as well as engraved hollowed-out bones containing blue paint. A large group of marble idols have been found showing a squatting motif, and figures of men are found from an early date, usually figures of musicians such as the harpist or a standing flutist. Music was an element in the funeral rites, and even the dead were not to be deprived of it, which is why these statuettes were buried with the dead, perhaps with the idea of pleasing the gods and giving vigor to departed souls (Matz 57-65). The fact that the harpist under discussion was not in the act of playing the instrument is perhaps an interesting comment about the person with whom it was buried, or a comment by that person on how they felt about the gods.
More religious commentary can be found in the work of Pierre Le Gros (1666-1719), a French sculptor, also worked extensively in Rome. His Saint Thoma...