Asklepios is represented bearded and with long hair in the characteristic standing pose, leaning on a staff around which is coiled a snake, the main attribute of the healing god. Son of Apollo, Asklepios appeared initially in Greek mythology as a mortal hero with remarkable therapeutic abilities, which extended even to resurrecting the dead. He seems to have acquired divine status only in the 6th c. BC, when the first Asklepieia (sanctuaries of Asklepios) were founded in close association with the worship of Apollo. From the 5th c. BC the Asklepieia (with that at Epidauros being the foremost among them) developed into popular places of cult and curing. Every Asklepieion had an Enkoimeterion or Abaton, that is, a sacred dormitory where the sick slept awaiting Asklepios to reveal the means of therapy in their dreams. This process was known as incubation (enkoimesis). The figurine is thought to follow the type of a famous cult statue of Asklepios (now lost) created by the artist Bryaxis. In Hellenistic times, bronze statuettes of gods were mass-produced by workshops which copied renowned types of statues created by the great sculptors of the 4th c. BC.