Architercturally, a carved or modelled half-length female figure, which serves as a pier or pilaster. According to legend, the Caryatids were the women of Caria who attempted to betray the Greeks to the Persains and for their treachery were condemned to be walled up alive. Similar figures, sometimes full or three-quarter length, were carved in wood on a smaller scale as decorative features in Renaissance wood panelling. Caryatids were occasionally used as ornaments on Louis XIV clock cases, and they occure as gilded cast-metal decoration on the front corners of some large late 19th-century bracket clocks.