The Sculptor's Chisel
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A caryatid (/kæriˈætɪd/ kair-ee-AT-id; Greek: Καρυάτις, plural: Καρυάτιδες) 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 of Peloponnese.
Karyai had a famous 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".
An Atlas or Atlantes is a male version of a caryatid, i.e. a sculpted male statue serving as an architectural support of a column.
I became aware of Caryatids upon reading Vitruvius and his Ten Books on Architecture. It was a warning to others, that if you war with us we will enslave your women as they did with Karyae
Auguste Rodin's 1881 sculpture Fallen Caryatid Carrying her Stone (part of his monumental The Gates of Hell work)
shows a fallen caryatid.
