1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Caryatides

CARYATIDES (Latinized from the Greek; the plural of Caryatis, i.e. a woman of Caryae in Laconia), in architecture, the term given to the draped female figures used for piers or supports, as found in the porticos of the Erechtheum and of the Treasury of Cnidus at Delphi (see Greek Art, fig. 17).