Art & MusicGreek → English
Caryatid
/ˌkæriˈætɪd/noun
A carved female figure used in place of a column to carry an entablature.
The Greek roots
Καρυάτιδες
Karyátides
maidens of Karyai
Καρύαι
Karýai
Karyai, a Laconian village
Literally: “the maidens of Karyai”
The story of the word
The maidens of Karyai danced at the festival of Artemis there, baskets on their heads, which is the likeliest source of the image. Vitruvius offers a grimmer story, that Karyai sided with Persia and its women were enslaved, so architects made them hold up buildings forever as a public punishment; most scholars treat that as invention after the fact. Six of them stand on the south porch of the Erechtheion, five now in the Acropolis Museum and one in London, taken by Elgin.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
atlastelamon
In a sentence
Two caryatids carry the porch of the bank on the corner.
The missing caryatid was replaced on site by a cast.