REPRESENTATIONS OF THE APRON ON THE ANTHROPOMORPHIC STATUETTES OF THE CUCUTENI CULTURE Aurel Melniciuc aurel_melniciuc@yahoo.it Adela Kovács adelakovacs.museum@gmail.com Key words: Copper Age, Cucuteni-Trypillia culture, symbols, apron representation, statuettes. Abstract: Anthropomorphic representations are part of the complex manifestations of spiritual life of the Cucuteni Culture communities, at the end of the Neolithic civilization. Their knowledge and interpretation remains, therefore, a necessary component in understanding the daily life of man at that time, but also of the manifestations that underpin the collective mentality of the bearers of this brilliant culture. In the analysis of the religious phenomenon of the Cucuteni culture communities, the anthropomorphic representations play an important role alongside painted ceramics, both because it is one of the few categories of artifacts that have been preserved very well over time. Considering the impressive number and direct iconographic message they represent one of the most importat artifacts, which show us some sort of men- tality and abstract ideeas. The fgurines and the statuettes represent sometimes symbolic meanings, easy to perceive and with a strong impact on the viewer. The statuettes from Cucuteni A-B phase have as a general characteristic the tendency to elongate the body, even if this occurs gradually. The renunciation of the burly woman’s archetype, in favor of the young woman (nubile virgin) occurs mainly in stage A-B2, when the statuettes become thin- ner and the body fattens and elongates. We notice a reduction in the size of the thighs and hips and a fattening of the feet, both for male and female statuettes. Some of the feminine representations have several incised or painted representation of the sexual triangle, several of them ephasised in the shape of a large apron. These were made using incisions and small dots. From excavations and feld surveys were recovered several anthropomorphic statuettes which have this specifc decorative pattern. The same decorative pattern was also found on a fragmented vessel, a possible representation of the woman, discovered at one of the most impressive Cucuteni A-B1 sites, Ripiceni-Holm, Botoşani County, Romania. Our presentation is discussing the statuettes decorated with aprons from Cucuteni culture and the ceramic fragment presenting the same decorative pattern. The present article is concerned with the way of representing a clothing item that appears in multiple situations on the stat- uettes belonging to the Cucuteni culture, namely the apron. Cucuteni culture is one of the few prehistoric cultures that has a rich and varied documentation referring to clothing items, considering the number and diversity of anthropomorphic representations. Regarding the frequency of occurrence of this decorative motif among the anthropomor- phic representations of women, we can say that they are quite rare. Also, from the data available so far, we can say that this article of 181 TIBERIOPOLITANI vol. 3