For more on Aegean Prehistoric Archaeology see the site developed by Jeremy B. Rutter & Dartmouth College.
An excellent source for understanding Cycladic figures can be found on the website of the Art Institute of Chicago.
And here is the UNESCO site on Mycenae and Tiryns.
The majority of Cycladic figures are female, however the figures that break out of convention are the male figures. What does this mean? Did fewer male figures survive, therefore male figures were dominant in society since they are the figures attributed with different poses? Or perhaps the females were more important, since they are the main figures discovered of the Cycladic figures. Or maybe the female figures were simply representations of fertility. Each society has a different method of dominance between the men and women, so I’m curious as to whether they were a matriarchy, patriarchy or perhaps a society in which every gender was treated equally.
In my opinion, the female figures played a more significant role because they represented fertility. This is because fertility is essential to the maintenance of the population. However, it’s also possible that the men were more important because they fought in the wars and kept the females safe. But since the female figures were discovered first, I think it’s safe to say that the Aegean had a mostly matrilineal society.
The difference between male and female figures is very interesting. The male Cycladic figures also look to be much bulkier than the female figures. While these figures are obviously pretty abstract from human figures, it looks like they may represent the ‘ideal’ men and women for the cultures they’re found in. Men being workers/creators while women are symbols of fertility and life and thus have the wide hips and thinner arms since their ‘ideal’ women would be one that doesn’t do manual labour.
I believe that the figure were used for ritual proposes as many of them seem to represent images from rituals like music playing and dancing. The figure show very distinct physical feature from each gender like the hips of a women or the broad shoulders of a man. The female figures seem, to be highlighting the parts of the body important for fertility while the men’s figure seem to emphasize the masculinity of men.
Reading Mark Bradley’s “The Importance of Color on Ancient Marble Sculpture” I now have a different interpretation in which to view these ancient artworks of art. The thought that these beautiful white marble were once colored is quite interesting because we readily don’t come to that conclusion. I wonder why historians did not emphasize the importance of color in the ancient Greek and Roman world, when it is evident that color was widely used. I understand that the pristine beauty of the white marble is quite impressive but doesn’t authenticity of these pieces matter more then aesthetics? Neither less Bradley article highlights many of the issues surrounding the color version of such works like the Cyclades and many other ancient Greek and Roman artwork. But more importantly that people are starting to embrace the idea of color on these important historical works of art.
The Chicago resource was an interesting read, it is strange to see that the female figures were not being more active and were often just what were believed be fertility charms. Furthermore it is strange the wide variety of places and situations archaeologists can find these figures in. Being buried with the dead and being found in a home would have very different meanings, but since these can be found in both the only thing we can be sure of was that these were important pieces of their culture.