Greek archaeologist and first General Keeper of Antiquities
Kyriakos Pittakis dedicated his life to the preservation of Greek Antiquities.
His most important fait d'armes is very telling of his love for the story of his country: in 1821, when the Turks took control of the Acropolis and started taking it down to turn the lead clamps into bullets, he was among the Greek soldiers who chose to send bullets to the enemy rather than seeing the monument destroyed.
After preserving the Acropolis, he restored the Erechtheion, the temple on the North side of the Acropolis and the Lion Gate in Mycenae.
Despite being criticised for his lack of formal architectural or archaeological education, he was the first General Keeper of Antiquities.
A Caryatid (‘maiden of Karyai’, an ancient town in Peloponnese) is an architectural element in form of female statue whose function is to support on its head an entablature (superstructure of mouldings and bands).
On the Acropolis of Athens, 6 marble Caryatids formed the southern porch of the Erechtheion, a temple dedicated to the legendary Greek hero Erechthonios. None of the Caryatids went destroyed or lost; today 5 of them are in the New Acropolis Museum of Athens and 1, which stood second from the left on the front of the porch, is in the British Museum of London.
