Sphinx
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A sphinx (Greek: Σφίγξ /sphinx, Bœotian: Φίξ /Phix) is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.
In Greek tradition, it has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a
great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous
and merciless. Those who cannot answer her riddle suffer a fate typical
in such mythological stories, as they are killed and eaten by this
ravenous monster. Unlike the Greek sphinx which was a woman, the Egyptian sphinx is typically shown as a man (an androsphinx).
In addition, the Egyptian sphinx was viewed as benevolent in contrast
to the malevolent Greek version and was thought of as a guardian often
flanking the entrances to temples.
In European decorative art, the sphinx enjoyed a major revival during the Renaissance.
Later, the sphinx image, something very similar to the original Ancient
Egyptian concept, was exported into many other cultures, albeit often
interpreted quite differently due to translations of descriptions of the
originals and the evolution of the concept in relation to other
cultural traditions.
Generally the role of sphinxes is associated with architectural
structures such as royal tombs or religious temples. The oldest known
sphinx was found near Gobekli Tepe at another site, Nevali Çori, or possibly 120 miles to the east at Kortik Tepe, Turkey and was dated to 9,500 BC.
Egyptian Sphinx
The sphinx is located in the north and below the pyramids. What names their builders gave to these statues is not known. At the Great Sphinx site, the inscription on a stele by Thutmose IV in 1400 BCE, lists the names of three aspects of the local sun deity of that period, Khepera–Rê–Atum. The inclusion of these figures in tomb and temple
complexes quickly became traditional and 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. 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, Memphis, Egypt, 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 with ram heads, representing Amon, were built in Thebes, where his cult was strongest.
Perhaps the first sphinx in Egypt was one depicting Queen Hetepheres II, of the fourth dynasty that lasted from 2723 to 2563 BC. She was one of the longest-lived members of the royal family of that dynasty.
The largest and most famous is the Great Sphinx of Giza, Arabic: أبو الهول, sited at the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile River and facing due east.
It is also from the same dynasty. Although the date of its construction
is uncertain, the head of the Great Sphinx now is believed to be that
of the pharaoh Khafra.
The Great Sphinx has become an emblem of Egypt, frequently appearing on its stamps, coins, and official documents.
Greek Sphinx
From the Bronze Age, the Hellenes had trade and cultural contacts with Egypt. Before the time that Alexander the Great occupied Egypt, the Greek name, sphinx,
was already applied to these statues. The historians and geographers of
Greece wrote extensively about Egyptian culture. Heredotus called the
ram-headed sphinxes, criosphinges, and the hawk-headed ones, hieracosphinges.
The word sphinx comes from the Greek Σφίγξ, apparently from the verb σφίγγω (sphíngō), meaning "to squeeze", "to tighten up".
This name may be derived from the fact that the hunters for a pride of
lions are the lionesses, and kill their prey by strangulation, biting
the throat of prey and holding them down until they die. The word sphincter
derives from the same root. However, the historian Susan Wise Bauer
suggests that the word "sphinx" was instead, a Greek corruption of the
Egyptian name "shesepankh," which meant "living image," and referred
rather to the statue of the sphinx, which was carved out of
"living rock" (rock that was present at the construction site, not
harvested and brought from another location), than to the beast itself.
There was a single sphinx in Greek mythology, a unique demon of destruction and bad luck. According to Hesiod, she was a daughter of Orthus and either Echidna or the Chimera, or perhaps even Ceto; according to others, she was a daughter of Echidna and Typhon. All of these are chthonic figures from the earliest of Greek myths, before the Olympians ruled the Greek pantheon. The Sphinx is called Phix (Φίξ) by Hesiod in line 326 of the Theogony, the proper name for the Sphinx noted by Pierre Grimal's The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology.
In Greek mythology, a sphinx is represented as a monster with a head of a woman, the body of a lioness, the wings of an eagle, and a serpent headed tail.
The sphinx was the emblem of the ancient city-state of Chios, and appeared on seals and the obverse side of coins from the 6th century BC until the 3rd century AD.
Athena appears in the middle of the upper-half of the middle of a
sarcophagus found in the middle pyramid of Giza, with two sphinxes at
her side.
The Riddle of the Sphinx
The Sphinx is said to have guarded the entrance to the Greek city of Thebes, and to have asked a riddle of travellers to allow them passage. The exact riddle asked by the Sphinx was not specified by early tellers of the stories, and was not standardized as the one given below until late in Greek history.It was said in late lore that Hera or Ares sent the Sphinx from her Ethiopian homeland (the Greeks always remembered the foreign origin of the Sphinx) to Thebes in Greece where she asks all passersby the most famous riddle in history: "Which creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?" She strangled and devoured anyone unable to 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 walks with a cane in old age. By some accounts (but much more rarely), 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 are feminine in Greek).
Bested at last, the tale continues, the Sphinx then threw herself from her high rock and died. An alternative version tells that she devoured herself. Thus Oedipus can be recognized as a "liminal" or threshold figure, helping effect the transition between the old religious practices, represented by the death of the Sphinx, and the rise of the new, Olympian gods.
In Jean Cocteau's retelling of the Oedipus legend, The Infernal Machine, the Sphinx tells Oedipus the answer to the riddle, to kill herself so that she did not have to kill anymore, and also to make him love her. He leaves without ever thanking her for giving him the answer to the riddle. The scene ends when the Sphinx and Anubis, who is there to kill the victims who cannot answer the riddle, ascend back to the heavens.
There are mythic, anthropological, psychoanalytic, and parodic interpretations of the Riddle of the Sphinx, and of Oedipus's answer to it. Numerous riddle books use the Sphinx in their title or illustrations.
Sphinxes in South and South-East Asia
A composite mythological being with the body of a lion and the head
of a human being is present in the traditions, mythology and art of
South and South-East Asia. Variously known as purushamriga (Sanskrit, "man-beast"), purushamirugam (Tamil, "man-beast"), naravirala (Sanskrit, "man-cat") in India, or as nara-simha (Sanskrit, "man-lion") in Sri Lanka, manusiha or manuthiha (Pali, "man-lion") in Myanmar, and nora nair or thepnorasingh in Thailand.In contrast to the sphinx in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Greece, where the traditions largely have been lost due to the discontinuity of the civilization, the traditions of the "Asian sphinx" are very much alive today. The earliest artistic depictions of "sphinxes" from the South Asian subcontinent are to some extent influenced by Hellenistic art and writings. These hail from the period when Buddhist art underwent a phase of Hellenistic influence.
In South India, the "sphinx" is known as purushamriga (Sanskrit) or purushamirugam (Tamil), meaning "Human-Beast". 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. It is therefore
often found in a strategic position on the gopuram or temple gateway, or near the entrance of the Sanctum Sanctorum.In Kanya Kumari district, in the southernmost tip of the Indian subcontinent, during the night of Shiva Ratri, devotees run 75 kilometres while visiting and worshiping at twelve Shiva temples. This Shiva Ottam (or Run for Shiva) is performed in commemoration of the story of the race between the Sphinx and Bhima, one of the heroes of the epic Mahabharata.
The Indian conception of a sphinx that comes closest to the classic Greek idea, is in the concept of the Sharabha, a mythical creature, part lion, part man and part bird, and the form of Sharabha that god Shiva took on to counter Narasimha's violence.
In Philippines, the sphinx is known as nicolonia. It is depicted as part man and part eagle that is known to ask riddles to wanderers who trespass in the Bicol region. Anyone who fails to answer its riddle is said to be carried off to the Mayon Volcano where they are said to be offered to the volcano god, Gev'ra, to appease his anger.
In Sri Lanka, the sphinx is known as narasimha or man-lion. As a sphinx, it has the body of a lion and the head of a human being, and is not to be confused with Narasimha, the fourth reincarnation of the deity Vishnu; this avatar or incarnation is depicted with a human body and the head of a lion. The "sphinx" narasimha is part of the Buddhist tradition and functions as a guardian of the northern direction and also was depicted on banners.
In Burma, the sphinx is known as manussiha (manuthiha). It is depicted on the corners of Buddhist stupas, and its legends tell how it was created by Buddhist monks to protect a new-born royal baby from being devoured by ogresses.
Nora Nair and Thep Norasingh are two of the names under which the "sphinx" is known in Thailand. They are depicted as upright walking beings with the lower body of a lion or deer, and the upper body of a human. Often they are found as female-male pairs. Here, too, the sphinx serves a protective function. It also is enumerated among the mythological creatures that inhabit the ranges of the sacred mountain Himapan.
Revived sphinxes in Europe
The revived Mannerist sphinx of the 16th century is sometimes thought of as the French sphinx. Her coiffed head is erect and she has the breasts of a young woman. Often she wears ear drops and pearls as ornaments. Her body is naturalistically rendered as a recumbent lioness. Such sphinxes were revived when the grottesche or "grotesque" decorations of the unearthed "Golden House" (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 were included in the decoration of the loggia of the Vatican Palace by the workshop of Raphael (1515–20), which updated the vocabulary of the Roman grottesche.The first appearances of sphinxes in French art are in the School of Fontainebleau in the 1520s and 1530s and she continues into the Late Baroque style of the French Régence (1715–1723).
From France, she spread throughout Europe, becoming a regular feature of the outdoors decorative sculpture of 18th-century palace gardens, as in the Upper Belvedere Palace in Vienna, Sanssouci Park in Potsdam, La Granja in Spain, Branicki Palace in Białystok, or the late Rococo examples in the grounds of the Portuguese Queluz National Palace (of perhaps the 1760s), with ruffs and clothed chests ending with a little cape.
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 romantic, and later symbolism movements in the 19th century. Most of these sphinxes alluded to the Greek sphinx, rather than the Egyptian, although they may not have wings.
Sphinxes in Freemasonry
The sphinx image also has been adopted into Masonic
architecture. Among the Egyptians, sphinxes were placed at the entrance
of the temple to guard the mysteries, by warning those who penetrated
within, that they should conceal a knowledge of them from the
uninitiated. Champollion
says that the sphinx became successively the symbol of each of the
gods, by which portal suggests that the priests intended to express the
idea that all the gods were hidden from the people, and that the
knowledge of them, guarded in the sanctuaries, was revealed to the
initiates only. As a Masonic emblem, the sphinx has been adopted in its
Egyptian character as a symbol of mystery, and as such often is found as
a decoration sculptured in front of Masonic temples, or engraved at the
head of Masonic documents. It cannot, however, be properly called an
ancient, recognized symbol of the order. Its introduction has been of
comparatively recent date, and rather as a symbolic decoration than as a
symbol of any particular dogma.
