Caryatid

The caryatid porch of the Erechtheion in Athens, Greece. These are now replicas. The originals are in the Acropolis Museum (with one in the British Museum).
The caryatid taken by Elgin from the Erechtheion, standing in contrapposto, displayed at the British Museum

A caryatid (/ˌkɛəriˈætɪd, ˌkær-/ KAIR-ee-AT-id, KARR-;[1] Ancient Greek: Καρυᾶτις, romanized: Karuâtis; pl. Καρυάτιδες, Karuátides)[2] is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head. The Greek term karyatides literally means "maidens of Karyai", an ancient town on the Peloponnese. Karyai had a temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis in her aspect of Artemis Karyatis: "As Karyatis she rejoiced in the dances of the nut-tree village of Karyai, those Karyatides, who in their ecstatic round-dance carried on their heads baskets of live reeds, as if they were dancing plants".[3]

An atlas or atlantid or telamon is a male version of a caryatid, i.e., a sculpted male statue serving as an architectural support.

  1. ^ "caryatid". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster.
  2. ^ Καρυᾶτις in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
  3. ^ (Kerenyi 1980 p 149)