A caryatid (plural: caryatids. Ancient Greek: Καρυᾶτις, pl. Καρυάτιδες) is a female sculpture used as support for an entablature in lieu of a column. The name is derived from a city in the Peloponnese, Karyai, where Artemis was worshiped as “Karyatis” and “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”