The ancient Greek Erechtheum on the Athenian Acropolis, 421-406 BC. In the southwestern corner of the Erechtheum is the famous ‘Porch of the Maidens’ (photo 1), where statues of six young girls take the place of supporting columns. The Iconic order was considered feminine to the Greeks due to its elaborate decoration and slender proportions -apparently stereotypical female characteristics.
The sculptures of the maidens, due to severe weathering, were replaced by replicas in 1978, with the originals moved to the Acropolis Museum (with the exception of one which was removed earlier, and is now located at The British Museum: GR 1816.6-10.128). The photographs illustrating this post were chosen as they show the original sculptures, before they were replaced by the replicas.
Vitruvius, a Roman author and architect of the 1st century BC, gives his history on the reason behind the creation of these caryatides in his work De Architectura (I.1.5):
”Should any one wish for information on the origin of those draped matronal figures crowned with a mutulus and cornice, called Caryatides, he will explain it by the following history. Carya, a city of Peloponnesus, joined the Persians in their war against the Greeks. These in return for the treachery […the Greeks] resolved to levy war against the Caryans. Carya was, in consequence, taken and destroyed, its male population extinguished, and its matrons carried into slavery. That these circumstances might be better remembered, and the nature of the triumph perpetuated, the victors represented them draped, and apparently suffering under the burthen with which they were loaded, to expiate the crime of their native city. Thus, in their edifices, did the antient architects, by the use of these statues, hand down to posterity a memorial of the crime of the Caryans.” (Qwilt translation.)
Both photographs are from the Cornell University Library (A. D. White Architectural Photographs): 15/5/3090.00290 & 15/5/3090.00610. The first photo was taken in 1869, and the second, sometime between 1865 and 1875.
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