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{{about||the genus of moths|Caryatis (moth)|other uses|Carya}}
In [[ancient Greek religion]] '''Artemis Caryatis'''<ref>''Diana Caryatis'', noted in [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]] scholium on Virgil's ''Eclogue'' viii.30.</ref> (Καρυᾶτις) was an [[epithet]] of [[Artemis]] that was derived from the small ''[[polis]]'' of [[Caryae]] in [[Laconia]];<ref>References to Karyai are collected in Graham Shipley, "'The other Lakedaimonians': the dependent Perioikic ''poleis'' of Laconia and Messenia" in M.H. Hanson, ed. ''The Polis as an Urban Centre and as a Political Community'', (symposium) Copenhagen 1997:189-281.</ref> there an archaic open-air ''[[temenos]]'' was dedicated to '''Carya''', the ''Lady of the Nut-Tree'', whose priestesses were called the ''caryatides'', represented on the [[Athenian Acropolis]] as the marble [[caryatid]]s supporting the porch of the [[Erechtheum]]. The late accounts<ref>[[Virgil]], ''[[Eclogues]]'' 8.30 and [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]]' commentary; [[Athenaeus]] 3.78b; [[Eustathius of Thessalonica]], commentary on Homer, 1964.15, call noted in Pierre Grimal and A. R. Maxwell-Hyslop, ''The Dictionary of Classical Mythology'', ''s.v.'' "Carya".</ref> made of the [[eponym]]ous [[Carya (daughter of Dion)|Carya]] a virgin who had been transformed into a nut-tree, whether for her unchastity (with [[Dionysus]]) or to prevent her rape.<ref>Sarah Iles Johnston, ''Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece.'' (Berkeley:  University of California Press), 1999:227.</ref> The particular form of  veneration of Artemis at Karyai<ref>The feminine plural of the placename suggests an archaic "sisterhood of Karya"; see William Reginald Halliday, ed., ''The Greek Questions of Plutarch'', 1928:181; Jennifer K. McArthur, ''Place-names in the Knossos Tablets: Identification and Location, '' 1993:26.</ref> suggests that in pre-classical ritual '''Carya''' was  [[goddess]] of the nut tree<ref>Compare [[dryad]]s and the ash-tree nymphs called ''[[meliai]]''.</ref> who was later assimilated into the Olympian goddess Artemis. [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] noted that each year women performed a dance called the ''caryatis'' at a festival in honor of Artemis Caryatis called the ''[[Caryateia]]''.<ref>The festival is attested by [[Hesychius of Alexandria|Hesychius]], ''s.v.'' "Caryai".</ref>

==Notes==
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==External links==
*[https://archive.today/20130128114846/http://messagenet.com/myths/ppt/Caryatis_1.html Stewart, Michael. "People, Places Things: Caryatis"  ''Greek Mythology: From the Iliad to the Fall of the Last Tyrant'']
*[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Caryatis.html LacusCurtius.com: Caryatis, Caryatides]

[[Category:Greek goddesses]]
[[Category:Nature goddesses]]
[[Category:Epithets of Artemis]]
[[Category:Religion in ancient Sparta]]


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