What do the statues on Ilos represent?

In my first play-through of Mass Effect, I thought these might be statues of the Protheans.

However, in Mass Effect 3 with the From Ashes DLC, we later find out that Protheans look nothing like that.

I've played through all of the Trilogy, though I haven't played some of the DLC.

In fact, I only know of Javik via the Mass Effect Wiki - I'll be playing From Ashes soon, though.

Is there some point at which these statues are explained, that I'm forgetting?

4 Answers

The statues on Ilos were visually ambiguous, presumably because it wasn't clear at the time how much of a part they would play in the trilogy. It's worth noting that while Ilos was formally a Prothean planet, the term "Prothean" is later discovered to be a name attributed to multiple races inducted into the Prothean empire during the previous cycle.

This is further confused by the statues on Ilos looking remarkably similar to the images given to Shepard by the Eden Prime beacon:

As we later find out in Mass Effect 3, these beacons are in fact Prothean, and Javik (if you have the From Ashes DLC) will berate you for using the beacon, seeing the warnings and then subsequently not acting on them.

If we, for a moment, assume that these statues are not an earlier representation of the Protheans, it is also possible that the statues on Ilos were created by a race from the cycle before the Protheans ruled the galaxy, more specifically the Inusannon or the Zeioph.

The Inusannon were known to have previously inhabited Ilos at some point during a cycle predating the Protheans, and the ruins of Inusannon civilisation later provided the Protheans with the knowledge necessary to develop mass effect technology.

The Zeioph are of note because they are known to have built elaborate crypts on the surface of the planet Armeni.

Could be the (early) prothean design. ex. ME1 batarians (codex)look different than later(ME2...) design. Or could be true "they're" zeioph statues. They did inhabit illos.

The Innusannon or huskified Innusanon,advanced species from the cycle preceding the Prothean cycle. Originally they were probably meant to represent huskified Protheans (ME creators said they wanted Prothean appearance to be deliberately vague) but I think this "retcon" from ME2 when Collectors were introduced as prothean husks (which in turn influenced the design of Javik) was handled really well when in ME3 Javik (who is one of my favourite characters in the trilogy) says Protheans found Innusanon tech on Ilos that uplifted them. So it makes sense Protheans would leave statues of their precursors or even create them to tell the tragedy of their fall as a lesson and a warning.

Inusannon owned the planet before the protheans so i suppose it's of them.