Robin Church, age 16, of Wilmington, Del., for her question:

WHEN WAS THE FIRST SCULPTURE MADE?

We don't know when the first sculpture was made, but we do know it was back in prehistoric times. Prehistoric sculptors carved eyes or arms and legs in common objects like bones, animals horns and rocks to make them look like men or animals.

Later, prehistoric man learned to make pottery vessels by firing clay. Almost immediately, he extended this sculpting talent and used this technique to make~.figurines.

Terra cotta figurines have been found in many parts of Egypt, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. Although few details appear on these early figurines, the sculptors obviously did try to emphasize such physical features as an animal's horns, or a goddess' figure.

Starting about 3000 B.C., ancient civilizations produced many fine sculptures. By this time, artists had gained skill at working with harder materials such as stone and metals.

During the era of the Assyrian Empire, which ran from the 900s B.C. to the 600s B.C., sculpture was used mainly as architectural decoration.

The Assyrians carved colossal stone figures of bulls with human heads to stand beside palace gateways. Palace walls were decorated with reliefs made up of many scenes.

Assyrian sculptors also carved the forms and movements of animals more accurately and realistically than earlier sculptors did. But their human figures were stiff and unemotional, both in relief carvings and in the few large figures that they carved in the round.

A distinctive style of sculpture developed in Egypt about 3000 B.C. and continued with little major change for more than 3000 years. Egyptian sculpture was made for limited purposes, such as to commemorate a hero, god or event or to serve as an image of a real person.

In carving the human figure, the Egyptians considered realistic scale to be unimportant.

During the first thousand years of Indian culture, from the 500s B.C. to the A.D. 500s, Indian sculpture shows the influence of the Buddhist religion. Some of the most beautiful Buddhist sculptures decorate the gateways and stone railings that surround stupas or domed mounds.

The early Chinese, like other ancient peoples, faced the mysteries of the universe by making offerings to unknown spirits. The earliest Chinese sculptures were small figures that were placed in tombs. These tomb sculptures date from about 1500 B.C.

The prehistoric peoples of Japan made clay figures intended as funeral sculptures. Japanese figures resemble similar works of other oriental civilizations, especially those of China.

Early Greek sculptors made simple, formal works.