More importance may be attached to the fact that the sculptors who actually made some of the early statues of the gods in Athens and in the Peloponnesus are described as the pupils or by some as the sons or companions of Daedalus.

In this way his name is associated with some of the early schools that had the greatest influence in Greece, especially on the representation of the gods in sculpture.

There are other traditions of early schools of sculptors, the marble workers of Chios, the bronze founders of Samos, who devoted themselves mainly to making statues of the gods, some of which survived throughout historical times.

When we turn from tradition and consider the early examples of statues of gods that may still be seen or are recorded by extant copies, we find that these fall into two classes.

On the one hand, there are more or less exact repetitions of the primitive stock or stone, the cylindrical tree-trunk or the rectangular block cut from the quarry, with the rudest indication of head and arms and feet, deviating as little as possible from the original shape of the block.