The sphinx, a composite mythological being with the body of a lion and the head of a human, has captivated imaginations for millennia. Its presence spans across cultures and continents, evolving in symbolism and form, yet consistently embodying power, mystery, and guardianship.
Attic red-figure pyxis, 2nd half of the 5th century BC.
Origins in Ancient Egypt
Among the Egyptians, sphinxes were placed at the entrance of the temples to guard their mysteries, by warning those who penetrated within that they should conceal a knowledge of them from the uninitiated. Champollion said that the sphinx became successively the symbol of each of the gods.
Many pharaohs had their heads carved atop the guardian statues for their tombs to show their close relationship with the powerful solar deity Sekhmet, a lioness. What names their builders gave to these statues is unknown.
The largest and most famous sphinx is the Great Sphinx of Giza, situated on the Giza Plateau adjacent to the Great Pyramids of Giza on the west bank of the Nile River and facing east (29°58′31″N 31°08′15″E / 29.97528°N 31.13750°E).
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Great Sphinx of Giza
The monument was sculpted from the limestone bedrock of the Eocene-aged Mokattam Formation and faces east on the Giza Plateau, on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. The sphinx is located southeast of the pyramids.
While the date of its construction is not known for certain, the general consensus among Egyptologists is that the head of the Great Sphinx bears the likeness of the pharaoh Khafre, dating it to between 2600 and 2500 BC. The archaeological evidence suggests the Great Sphinx was created between 2600 and 2500 BC for the king Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza, or his son Khafre, the builder of the second Pyramid at Giza. The Sphinx is a monolith carved from the bedrock of the plateau, which also served as the quarry for the pyramids and other monuments in the area.
Besides the Great Sphinx, other famous Egyptian sphinxes include one bearing the head of the pharaoh Hatshepsut, with her likeness carved in granite, which is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the alabaster Sphinx of Memphis, currently located within the open-air museum at that site. The theme was expanded to form great avenues of guardian sphinxes lining the approaches to tombs and temples as well as serving as details atop the posts of flights of stairs to very grand complexes. Nine hundred sphinxes with ram heads (Criosphinxes), believed to represent Amon, were built in Thebes, where his cult was strongest. At Karnak, each Criosphinx is fronted by a full-length statue of the pharaoh.
Discovery of a Limestone Sphinx
In March 2023, a limestone sphinx was discovered at the Dendera Temple Complex.
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The Sphinx in Greek Mythology
In the Bronze Age, the Hellenes had trade and cultural contacts with Egypt. There was a single sphinx in Greek mythology, a unique demon of destruction and bad luck.
In Greek tradition, the sphinx is a treacherous and merciless being with the head of a woman, the haunches of a lion, and the wings of a bird. Both the Greek and Egyptian sphinxes were thought of as guardians, and statues of them often flank the entrances to temples.
The Sphinx is said to have guarded the entrance to the Greek city of Thebes, asking a riddle to travellers to allow them passage. She strangled and devoured anyone who could not answer. Oedipus solved the riddle by answering: "Man-who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then uses a walking stick in old age".
In some lesser accounts, there was a second riddle: "There are two sisters: one gives birth to the other and she, in turn, gives birth to the first. Who are the two sisters?" The answer is "day and night" (both words-ἡμέρα and νύξ, respectively-are feminine in Ancient Greek).
There are mythic, anthropological, psychoanalytic and parodic interpretations of the Riddle of the Sphinx, and of Oedipus's answer to it.
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Sphinxes in Asia
A composite mythological being with the body of a lion and the head of a human is present in the traditions, mythology and art of South and Southeast Asia. In contrast to the sphinxes in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Greece, of which the traditions largely have been lost due to the discontinuity of the civilization, the traditions related to the "Asian sphinxes" are very much alive today.
In South India, the "sphinx" is known as puruṣamr̥ga (Sanskrit) or purushamirugam (Tamil), meaning "human-animal". It is found depicted in sculptural art in temples and palaces where it serves an apotropaic purpose, just as the "sphinxes" in other parts of the ancient world. It is said by the tradition, to take away the sins of the devotees when they enter a temple and to ward off evil in general.
In Sri Lanka and India, the sphinx is known as narasimha or human-lion. In Burma (Myanmar), the sphinx-like statue, with a human head and two lion hindquarters, is known as Manussiha (manuthiha). Nora Nair, Norasingha and Thep Norasingha are three of the names under which the "sphinx" is known in Thailand. Here, too, the sphinx serves a protective function.
The Sphinx in Later Art and Culture
During the Renaissance, the sphinx enjoyed a major revival in European decorative art. The revived Mannerist sphinx of the late 15th century is sometimes thought of as the "French sphinx". Such sphinxes were revived when the grottesche or "grotesque" decorations of the unearthed Domus Aurea of Nero were brought to light in late 15th-century Rome, and she was incorporated into the classical vocabulary of arabesque designs that spread throughout Europe in engravings during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Sphinxes are a feature of the neoclassical interior decorations of Robert Adam and his followers, returning closer to the undressed style of the grottesche. They had an equal appeal to artists and designers of the Romanticism and subsequent Symbolism movements in the 19th century.
The Great Sphinx of Giza for Children: Ancient Egyptian History for Kids - FreeSchool
The Decadent Movement, a European movement that was attributed to the notion of "decadence" around the 1890s, implores the main notion of finding beauty in the decline of civilization in the form of macabre or taboo subjects such as the sphinx. The motif of the sphinx can also be connected to the motif of the "femme fatale" figure in decadent texts in which a typically female-like figure or beast seduces and murders men. Oscar Wilde, a known Decadent writer, utilized this motif in his poem "The Sphinx".
The writer James Thomson, similarly to Wilde, also utilizes the motif of the sphinx in his poem "The City of Dreadful Night".
The Enigmatic Nose of the Sphinx
The circumstances of the destruction of the Sphinx's nose are unknown, but examinations of the face have shown evidence of a deliberate act with rods or chisels. Contrary to a popular myth, the nose was not destroyed by cannonfire from Napoleon's troops during his 1798 Egyptian campaign. Examination of the Sphinx's face shows marks made by long rods or chisels hammered into the face: one at the bridge of the nose, and another below the nostril.
Drawings made by Frederic Louis Norden in 1737 show the Sphinx's nose missing, over 60 years before Napoleon's arrival. Some 10th-century Arab authors claimed the damaged nose was the result of iconoclastic attacks.
According to al-Maqrīzī, Sa'im al-Dahr saw local peasants making offerings to the Sphinx in the hope of increasing their harvest and defaced the Sphinx in an act of iconoclasm.
Modern Interpretations and Discoveries
Over the centuries, writers and scholars have recorded their impressions and reactions upon seeing the Sphinx. The desert's waves have risen to its breast, as if to wrap the monster in a winding-sheet of gold. The face and head have been mutilated by Moslem fanatics. The mouth, the beauty of whose lips was once admired, is now expressionless. Yet grand in its loneliness, - veiled in the mystery of unnamed ages, - the relic of Egyptian antiquity stands solemn and silent in the presence of the awful desert - symbol of eternity. Here it disputes with Time the empire of the past; forever gazing on and on into a future which will still be distant when we, like all who have preceded us and looked upon its face, have lived our little lives and disappeared.
Early Egyptologists and excavators had conflicting opinons regarding the age of the Sphinx and the associated temples. In 1857, Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, unearthed the much later Inventory Stela (estimated to be from the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, c. 664-525 BC), which tells how Khufu came upon the Sphinx, already buried in sand.
In 2004, Vassil Dobrev of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale in Cairo announced he had uncovered new evidence the Great Sphinx may have been the work of the little-known pharaoh Djedefre (2528-2520 BC), Khafre's half brother and a son of Khufu. Dobrev suggests Djedefre built the Sphinx in the image of his father Khufu, identifying him with the sun god Ra in order to restore respect for their dynasty.
Geologist Colin Reader suggests water runoff from the Giza plateau is responsible for the differential erosion on the walls of the sphinx enclosure. Because the hydrological characteristics of the area were significantly changed by the quarries, Reader contends this suggests the sphinx likely predated the quarries (and thus, the pyramids).
The Enduring Appeal
From ancient Egypt to modern art, the sphinx remains a potent symbol of mystery, power, and wisdom. Its image continues to inspire artists, writers, and dreamers, ensuring its legacy for generations to come.
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