Sphinx Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
A Sphinx (for the archaic spelling Sphynx, revived for a breed of cat and other uses, see below) is an iconic image of a recumbent lion with a human head, invented by the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom, but a cultural import in archaic Greek mythology, where it received its name (Greek, "strangler").| Table of contents |
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2 Greek Sphinx 3 Similar creatures 4 Mannerist Sphinx 5 Sphynx 6 Sphinx Systems Guns |
Egyptian sphinx
The Egyptian sphinx is an ancient iconic mythical creature usually comprised of a recumbent lion – an animal with sacred solar associations – with a human head, usually that of a pharaoh.
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The largest and most famous is the Great Sphinx of Giza, which is on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile River, facing due east, with a small temple between its paws. The face of the Great Sphinx is believed to the head of the pharaoh Khafre (often known by the Hellenised version of his name, Chephren), which would date its construction to the Fourth Dynasty (2723 BCE – 2563 BCE).
Other famous Egyptian sphinxes include the alabaster sphinx of Memphis, currently located within the open-air museum at that site; and the ram-headed sphinxes, representing the god Amun, that line either side of the three kilometre route linking the complexes of Luxor Temple and Karnak in Luxor (ancient Thebes), of which there were originally some nine hundred.
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Greek Sphinx
from the Vatican Museum]]
There was one Sphinx in Greek mythology. She was a demon of destruction and bad luck, according to Hesiod a daughter of the Chimaera and Orthrus, according to others of Typhon and Echidna. She was represented most often seated upright rather than recumbent, as a winged lion with a woman's head; or she was a woman with the paws, claws and breasts of a lion, a serpent's tail and birdlike wings. Hera or Ares sent her from her Ethiopian homeland (for the Greeks remembered the Sphinx's foreign origins) to sit outside Thebes and ask all passersby history's most famous riddle: "Which creature in the morning goes on four feet, at noon on two, and in the evening upon three?" She strangled anyone who couldn't answer. The word "sphinx" comes from the Greek Σφιγξ, Sphinx, apparently from the verb σφιγγω, sphingo, meaning "to strangle". Oedipus solved the riddle: man, crawls on all fours as a baby then walks on two feet as an adult, and walks with a cane in old age. The Sphinx then threw herself from her high rock and died.
Thus Oedipus can be recognized as a liminal or "threshold" figure, helping effect the transition between the old religious practices, represented by the Sphinx, and new, Olympian ones.
Similar creatures
Not all human-headed animals of antiquity are sphinxes. In ancient Assyria, for example, bas-reliefs of bulls with the crowned bearded heads of kings guarded the entrances to temples. In the classical Olympian mythology of Greece, all the deities had human form, though they could assume their animal natures as well. All the creatures of Greek myth that combine human and animal form are survivals of the pre-Olympian religion: centaurs, Typhon, Medusa, Lamia.
See also: shedu
Mannerist Sphinx
The revived Mannerist Sphinx of the 16th century is sometimes thought of as the French Sphinx. Her lovely coiffed head is erect and she has the pretty bust of a young woman. Often she wears eardrops and pearls. Her body is naturalistically rendered as a recumbent lion. Such Sphinxes were revived when the grottesche or "grotesque" decorations of the unearthed "Golden House" (Domus Aurea) of Nero were brought to light in early 16th century Rome, and she was incorporated into the vocabulary of arabesque designs that was spread throughout Europe in engravings during the 16th and 17th centuries. Her first appearances in French art are in the School of Fontainebleau in the 1520s and 30s; her last appearances are in the Late Baroque style of the French Régence; (1715–1723). Sphinxes were too somber perhaps for the Rococo, and they tended to disappear from the European design repertory.
Sphynx
Sphynx are a breed of hairless cat; see: Sphynx (cat).
"Sphynx" is also the name of a brand of software.
See also: Sphinx Systems
This is an Article on Sphinx. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Sphinx Sphinx Systems Guns
Sphinx Systems is a Swiss competition pistols manufacturer.