Image of Oedipus answering the Sphinx’s riddle from Athanasius Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Hoc est uniuersalis hieroglyphicae veterum doctrinae temporum iniuria abolitae instauratio (Rome, 1652), i, engraved title page.
The Egyptian sphinx was a symbol of divine kingship and three major types of the composite creature can be found in Egyptian art: a lion with a human head and/or face (androsphinx); a ram-headed lion (criosphinx); and a hawk-headed lion (hieracosphinx). The largest and most famous sphinx is the Great Sphinx of Giza located adjacent to the Pyramids of Giza on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the river Nile in northern Egypt. It was carved from the limestone bedrock during the reign of the pharaoh Khafre (fl. 26th century B.C.) who was the fourth king of the Fourth Dynasty in the Old Kingdom and builder of the second largest of the Pyramids of Giza. The statue is in a recumbent position, symbolising that it is a guardian of a sacred place, and measures 73 metres (240 feet) in length and 20 metres (66 feet) in height.
The image below is of a basalt recumbent sphinx statue of pharaoh Nepherites I from volume three of Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Hoc est uniuersalis hieroglyphicae veterum doctrinae temporum iniuria abolitae instauration (Rome, 1654), which is a work of Egyptology by the German-born Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). Nepherites I founded the Twenty-ninth Dynasty in the Late Period and reigned as pharaoh between 399 and 393 B.C. The sphinx has a lion’s body and a man’s head and lies on a plinth with its forelegs outstretched and its tail curled round to one side. It is shown wearing a pleated linen headcloth called a Nemes headdress that is surmounted on the forehead by the royal uraeus cobra representing the goddess Udjo. The sphinxes of pharaohs Nepherites I and his successor Achoris are now both in the Louvre Museum in Paris (Inventory numbers: A 26 and A 27 respectively) and both were formerly in the gardens of the Villa Borghese in Rome.[1]
Image of a basalt Royal Sphinx statue of pharaoh Nepherites I, formerly in the gardens of the Villa Borghese, Rome, and now in the Louvre Museum, Paris, from Athanasius Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Hoc est uniuersalis hieroglyphicae veterum doctrinae temporum iniuria abolitae instauratio (Rome, 1654), iii, p. 469.
The Sphinx of Greek mythology was a monster with the wings of an eagle, the body and feet of a lion, the head and upper body of a woman, and, according to some sources, the tail of a serpent. The Sphinx and the Nemean Lion were both the offspring of the two-headed dog Orthrus and the three-headed, fire-breathing monster Chimera according to the poem Theogony by the 8th-century B.C. Greek poet Hesiod.
The Greek Sphinx crouched on a rock in front of the gates to the ancient Greek city of Thebes and tormented travellers passing by with a riddle, devouring everyone who couldn’t answer. One day a man called Oedipus came along and confronted the malevolent Sphinx who asked him the riddle: ‘What creature has one voice and walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?’ Oedipus answered the riddle correctly stating that it was a man who, as a child crawls on all fours, as an adult walks on two legs, and in old age uses a stick as a third leg. The Sphinx was so distraught by the solving of her riddle that she threw herself down from the rock and perished.[2]
The story of Oedipus, who fulfilled a prophecy by unwittingly killing his biological father and marrying his mother, is mentioned in a number of different versions by several ancient Greek poets and is the subject of the tragic play Oedipus Rex by the playwright Sophocles (ca. 496-406 B.C.), which together with Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone make up Sophocles’ three Theban plays.
The image at the top of this page is of the engraved title page from volume one of Athanasius Kircher’s Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Hoc est uniuersalis hieroglyphicae veterum doctrinae temporum iniuria abolitae instauratio (Rome, 1652) and depicts Oedipus answering the Sphinx’s riddle.
Leonardo Agostini, Gemmae et sculpturae antiquae depictae ab Leonardo Augustino Senensi ; Addita earum enarratione, in Latinum versa ab Jacobo Gronouio cujus accedit præfatio (Franeker [Netherlands], 1699), plate 206.
The above image of a winged sphinx intaglio carved in a black agate gemstone is from Leonardo Agostini’s Gemmae et sculpturae antiquae depictae ab Leonardo Augustino Senensi ; Addita earum enarratione, in Latinum versa ab Jacobo Gronouio cujus accedit præfatio (Franeker [Netherlands], 1699).
Sources
Boddens-Hosang, F. J. E., and Carole d’Albiac, ‘Sphinx’, Oxford Art Online.
Kendall, Laurel, et al. (eds), ‘Sphinx’, Mythic Creatures and the impossibly real animals who inspired them, (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 2016), pp 92-93.
Kircher, Athanasius, Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Hoc est uniuersalis hieroglyphicae veterum doctrinae temporum iniuria abolitae instauratio (Rome, 1654), Vol. III, pp 468-473.
Labbé-Toutée, Sophie, ‘Royal Sphinx with the name of the Pharaoh Achoris’, Musée du Louvre.
Scafella, Frank A., ‘The Sphinx’, in Malcolm Smith (ed.), Mythical and Fabulous Creatures: A Source Book and Research Guide (New York and London, 1987), pp 179-191.
http://www.theoi.com/Ther/Sphinx.html.
Text: Mr. Antoine Mac Gaoithín, Library Assistant at the Edward Worth Library, Dublin.
[1] Sophie Labbé-Toutée, ‘Royal Sphinx with the name of the Pharaoh Achoris’, Musée du Louvre.
[2] Frank A. Scafella, ‘The Sphinx’, in Malcolm Smith (ed.), Mythical and Fabulous Creatures: A Source Book and Research Guide (New York and London, 1987), pp 183-184; Laurel Kendall, et al. (eds), ‘Sphinx’, Mythic Creatures and the impossibly real animals who inspired them (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 2016), p. 93.