Caryatids, Atlases and Telamons

A Caryatid is a column sculpted as a female figure, supporting the entablature on her head. The name comes from the Greek town of Karyai, where the maidens of the town (Karyatides) danced in the round carrying baskets of live reeds on their heads.

A male figure acting as an architectural support is either: an Atlas (or Altantid), from the Titan condemned to hold up the sky - the celestial sphere, commonly misconstrued as the globe; or, a Telamon, Argonaut and father of Ajax who, according to Apollodorus, was the first through the wall during the siege of Troy, upstaging Hercules.