Tradition and the more copious evidence of actual remains teach us that these early attempts at sculpture in stone or marble were not confined to any one spot or narrow region.  On the contrary, the centers of artistic activity were numerous and widely diffused—­ the islands of Crete, Paros, and Naxos; the Ionic cities of Asia Minor and the adjacent islands of Chios and Samos; in Greece proper, Boeotia, Attica, Argolis, Arcadia, Laconia; in Sicily, the Greek colony Selinus; and doubtless many others.  It is very difficult to make out how far these different spots were independent of one another; how far, in other words, we have a right to speak of local “schools” of sculpture.  Certainly there was from the first a good deal of action and reaction between some of these places, and one chief problem of the subject is to discover the really originative centers of artistic impulse, and to trace the spread of artistic types and styles and methods from place to place.  Instead of attempting here to discuss or decide this difficult question, it will be better simply to pass in review a few typical works of the early archaic period from various sites.

The first place may be given to a marble image (Fig. 77) found in 1878 on the island of Delos, that ancient center of Apolline worship for the Ionians.  On the left side of the figure is engraved in early Greek characters a metrical inscription, recording that the statue was dedicated to Artemis by one Nicandra of Naxos.  Whether it was intended to represent the goddess Artemis or the woman Nicandra, we cannot tell; nor is the question of much importance to us.  We have here an extremely rude attempt to represent a draped female form.  The figure stands stiffly erect, the feet close together, the arms hanging straight down, the face looking directly forward.  The garment envelops the body like a close-fitting sheath, without a suggestion of folds.  The trunk of the body is flat or nearly so at the back, while in front the prominence of the breasts is suggested by the simple device of two planes, an upper and a lower, meeting at an angle.  The shapeless arms were not detached from the sides, except just at the waist.  Below the girdle the body is bounded by parallel planes in front and behind and is rounded off at the sides.  A short projection at the bottom, slightly rounded and partly divided, does duty for the feet.  The features of the face are too much battered to be commented upon.  The most of the hair falls in a rough mass upon the back, but on either side a bunch, divided by grooves into four locks, detaches itself and is brought forward upon the breast.  This primitive image is not an isolated specimen of its type.  Several similar figures or fragments of figures have been found on the island of Delos, in Boeotia, and elsewhere.  A small statuette of this type, found at Olympia, but probably produced at Sparta, has its ugly face tolerably preserved.