Sculpture Saturday offers another sculpture from the Delphi Archeological Museum, one of the marble caryatids (a sculpture of a female used as a pillar) of the Treasury of Siphnos at Delphi, Greece.  The sculptor is unknown.

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Caryatid of the Siphnian Treasury

This work is about 5ft 9in (1.75m) tall.  The Perseus Digital Library’s description reads in part:

The caryatid is one of a pair of mirror-image korai which, in place of columns, supported the entablature of the Siphnian Treasury porch. Her head, though battered, is essentially intact. She has a round face and finely combed hair, crimped in front, with four tendrils falling forward over each shoulder. Many holes attest to the numerous ornaments added to the stephane as well as to earrings. She wears a finely crinkled chiton with a simple scooped neck. The rolled himation passes from the left shoulder high under the opposite breast. Zig-zag pleats descend from a short, wide box pleat in the center. 

Siphnos, a Greek city-state in the Cyclades Islands in the Aegean Sea, built the treasury around 525 BC to hold its offerings to the Oracle of Delphi.  The head, torso and various fragments of this caryatid were unearthed at Delphi between 1891 and 1894 AD.

The caryatids of the Siphnian Treasury are precursors to the famous caryatids of the Porch of the Maidens on the Acropolis in Athens.

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The Erechtheion and the caryatids of the Porch of the Maidens

Sculpture Saturday is a challenge hosted by No Fixed Plans.

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