Most of the Cycladic sculptures, like many of their stone age predecessors in the Aegean, the Near East, and western Europe represent nude women with their arms folded across their stomachs. THey vary in height from a few inches to almost life-like. This statuette is a grave marker that typifies many of these figures. It is almost flat with large simple triangles dominating the form. The body has wide shoulders and tapers to tiny feet with an incised triangular pubis. These figures were primarily funerary offerings placed on their backs in the the graves. Whether they represent those buried with the statuettes or fertility figures, or goddesses is still debated.
Minoan Paintings depicted many aspects of Minoan life. Although the representation is still convention bound with the oversized frontal eyes, the liveliness and spontaneity are a breath of fresh air. In the Bull-leaping fresco the young women are depicted with fair skin and the males have dark skin. The human figures have stylized shapes with typically Minoan pinched waists and are highly animated. Although the profile pose with the full0view eye was a familiar convention in Egypt and Mesopotamia, the legance of the Cretan figures, with their long, curly hair and proud and self-confident bearing distinguishes them from all other early figure styles. The curving Minoan line suggests the elasticity of living and moving human beings.
Mycenaean cultural origins are still debated. It is believed that these people were influenced by Crete and some believe the mainland was a Minoan economic dependency for a long time. The treatment of the human face is primitive in the Mycenaean mask. This was one of the first known attempts in Greece to render the human face at life size. It is not known whether Mycenaean masks were intended as portraits, but different physical types were recorded with care. This mask portrays a man with a beard, perhaps a king.
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