Editing Caryatid (section)

==Etymology==
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<ref>Hersey, George, ''The Lost Meaning of Classical Architecture'', MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1998 p. 69</ref> 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]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20161003150042/http://www.greeceancientmodern.com/porchofmaidens.html Glittering Images], p. 25</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=AClFWV6PE8wC&dq=Karu%C3%A1tides&pg=PA197 Black Athena Revisited], p. 197</ref> 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.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=gsxfDwAAQBAJ&dq=Karu%C3%A1tides&pg=PT175 caryatide] in "Notre grec de tous les jours" by Bernard Sergent</ref> Nevertheless, the association of caryatids with slavery persists and is prevalent in [[Renaissance art]].<ref>''[[The Slave in European Art]]: From Renaissance Trophies to Abolitionist Emblem'', ed Elizabeth Mcgrath and Jean Michel Massing, London (The Warburg Institute) 2012</ref>

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|date=September 2015}}

A caryatid supporting a basket on her head is called a ''[[Kanephoros|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" &ndash; apparently in [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenaean]] times, like other plural feminine [[toponym]]s, such as Hyrai or Athens itself.

The later male counterpart of the caryatid is referred to as a [[telamon]] (plural ''telamones'') or [[Atlas (architecture)|atlas]] (plural ''atlantes'') &ndash; the name refers to the legend of [[Atlas (mythology)|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 (Agrigento)|Temple of Olympian Zeus]] in [[Agrigento]], [[Sicily]].