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Caryatid
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Load-bearing pillar in the figure of a female, Ancient Greece and later
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).<br>The caryatid standing in contrapposto, originally part of the Erechtheion, was removed by Lord Elgin and is now displayed at the British Museum
A caryatid (/ˌkɛəriˈætɪd, ˌkær-/ KAIR-ee-AT-id, KARR-;[1] Ancient Greek: Καρυᾶτις, romanized: Karuâtis; plural"}]],"parts":[{"template":{"target":{"wt":"plural form","href":"./Template:Plural_form"},"params":{"1":{"wt":"{{langx|grc|Καρυάτιδες|{{grc-transl|Καρυάτιδες}}||label=none}}"}},"i":0}}]}'>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.
Etymology<br>[edit]
The term is first recorded in the Latin form caryatides by the Roman architect Vitruvius. He stated in his 1st-century BC work De architectura (I.1.5) that certain female figures represented the punishment of the women of Caryae, a town near Sparta in Laconia, who were condemned to slavery after betraying Athens by siding with Persia in the Greco-Persian Wars. However, Vitruvius's explanation is doubtful; well before the Persian Wars, female figures were used as decorative supports in Greece[4] and the ancient Near East. Vitruvius's explanation is dismissed as an error by Camille Paglia in Glittering Images and not even mentioned by Mary Lefkowitz in Black Athena Revisited.[5][6] They both say the term refers to young women worshipping Artemis in Caryae through dance. Lefkowitz says that the term "comes from the Spartan city of Caryae, where young women did a ring dance around an open-air statue of the goddess Artemis, locally identified with a walnut tree". Bernard Sergent specifies that the dancers came to the small town of Caryae from nearby Sparta.[7] Nevertheless, the association of caryatids with slavery persists and is prevalent in Renaissance art.[8]
The ancient Caryae supposedly was one of the six adjacent villages that united to form the original township of Sparta, and the hometown of Menelaos' queen, Helen of Troy. Girls from Caryae were considered especially beautiful, strong, and capable of giving birth to strong children.[citation needed]
A caryatid supporting a basket on her head is called a canephora ("basket-bearer"), representing one of the maidens who carried sacred objects used at feasts of the goddesses Athena and Artemis. The Erectheion caryatids, in a shrine dedicated to an archaic king of Athens, may therefore represent priestesses of Artemis in Caryae, a place named for the "nut-tree sisterhood" – apparently in Mycenaean times, like other plural feminine toponyms, such as Hyrai or Athens itself.
The later male counterpart of the caryatid is referred to as a telamon (plural telamones) or atlas (plural atlantes) – the name refers to the legend of Atlas, who bore the sphere of the heavens on his shoulders. Such figures were used on a monumental scale, notably in the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Agrigento, Sicily.
Ancient usage<br>[edit]
Intricate hairstyle of caryatid, displayed at the Acropolis Museum in Athens<br>Some of the earliest known examples were found in the treasuries of Delphi, including that of Siphnos, dating to the 6th century BC. However, their use as supports in the form of women can be traced back even earlier, to ritual basins, ivory mirror handles from Phoenicia, and draped figures from archaic Greece.
The best-known and most-copied examples are the six figures of the Caryatid porch of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis in Athens. One of these original six figures was removed by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century, an action that caused significant damage to...