Statuette of a Female Figure

Named for a cemetery on the island of Paros in the Cyclades, the Plastiras type (about 3000-2800 B.C.) of Cycladic figure usually represented a standing woman with her hands meeting above the waist. The Getty Museum's example is unusual in having no forearms. Plastiras figures are irregularly proportioned, with the neck and head often as much as one third of the figure's overall height. The sculptor carefully carved this marble figure, separating the legs and indicating many anatomical details such as the collarbone, kneecaps, navel, and pelvic area. The face was articulated with a mouth and nose carved in relief, and holes bored for eyes, which were originally inlaid in a dark stone. Carving each leg made the figures fragile, and many show signs of ancient repairs. The hole in the figure's right thigh was used to reattach her leg after it broke in antiquity; the lower leg is no longer preserved. There are also modern repairs to the left leg and to the neck where it joins the shoulders.

Although the findspot of the great majority of Cycladic figures is unknown, many of those with known contexts have been found placed on their backs in graves. Not all Early Cycladic graves contain such sculptures, however, and several examples have been found in settlement and sanctuary contexts, indicating a more complex and perhaps multifaceted usage. Some may have been held upright in social or religious activities, such as processions. Hundreds of fragments were found in a sanctuary on the island of Keros, deliberately shattered and ritually discarded. Although the figures’ role and meaning in Cycladic culture remain elusive, the fact that the majority of Early Cycladic figures are female, and are represented nude, suggests they are probably linked with the idea of fertility and reproduction, which was a central spiritual concern of ancient Mediterranean religions.