SPHINX, a Greek word, signifying the squeezer or strangler, applied to certain symbolical forms of Egyptian origin, having the body of a lion, a human or an ani mal head, and two wings attached to the sides. Various other combinations of animal forms have been called by this name, although they are rather griffins or chimeras. Human-headed sphinxes have been called androsphinxes; one with the head of a rain, a criosphinx; with a hawk's head, a hieracosphinx. The form, when complete, had wings added at the sides; but these are of a later period, and seem to have originated with the Babylonians or Assyrians. In the Egyptian hieroglyphs, the sphinx bears the name of 1Veb, or lord, and Aka•, or intelligence, corresponding to the account of Clemens, that these emblematic figures depicted intellect and force. The idea that they alle gorized the overflow of the Nile when the sun was in the constellations Leo and 'Virgo appears quite unfounded. In Egypt the sphinx also appears as the symbolical form of the monarch considered as a conqueror, the head of the reigning king being placed upon a lion's body, the face bearded, and the usual dress-drapery being suspended before it.. Thus used, the sphinx was generally male; but in the case of female rulers, the figure has a female head and the body of a lioness.
The most remarkable sphinx is the Great Sphinx at Gizeh, a colossal form, hewn out of the natural rock, and lying 300 ft. e. of the second pyramid. It is sculptured out of a spur of the rock itself, to which masonry has been added in certain places, to com plete the form, and measures 172 ft. 6 in. long by 56 ft. high. Immediately in front of 'the breast, Caviglia found, in 1816, a small naos, or chapel, formed of three hieroglyph ical tablets, dedicated by the monarchs Thothmaa III. and Harnesses II. to the sphinx, whom they adore under the name of Heremakhn, or Harmachis, as the Greek inscrip' tions found at the same place call it—i.e. the sun on the horizon. These tablets formed three walls of the chapel; the fourth, iu it—i.e., had a door in the center, and two couchant lions placed upon it. A small lion was found on the pavement:and an altar between its fore-paws, apparently for sacrifices offered to it in the time of the Romans. Before the altar was a paved esplanade or dromos, leading to a staircase of thirty steps placed between two walls, and repaired in the reigns of M. Aurelius and L.Verns, May 10, 166 A.D. Iu the reign of Severna and his sons, 199-200 A.D., another dromos in the same line as the first, and a diverging staircase, were made, while some additions were found to have been made to the parts between the two staircases in the reign of Nero. Votive inscriptions of the Roman periol, some as late as the 3d c., were discovered in the walls and constructions. On the second digit of the left claw of the sphinx, an inscription, in pentameter Greek verses, by Arrian, probably of the time of Seyerus, was discovered. Another metrical and prosaic inscription was also found. In addition to
these walls of unburnt brick, galleries and shafts were found in the rear of the sphinx, extending northward. The excavations, however, of M. Mariette. in 1852, have thrown further light on the sphinx, discovering the peribolos, or outer wall that encircled it; that the head only was sculptured, and that the sand which had accumulated round it was brought by the hands of man, and not an encroachment of the desert; also that the masonry of the belly was supported by a kind of abutment. To the s. of the sphinx, Mariette found a dromos, which led to a temple built at the time of the 4th dynasty, of huge blocks of alabaster and red granite. In the midst of the great chamber of this temple were found seven statues, five mutilated and two entire, of the monarch Shaf-ra or Cephren, made of a porphyritic granite. They are fine examples of ancient Egyptian While hile the beauty and grandeur of the Great Sphinx have often attracted the atImira tion of travelers, its age has always remained a subject of doubt, but these later dis coveries prove it to havo been a monument of the age of the 4th dynasty, or contem porary with the pyramids.
Besides the great Sphinx, avenues of Sphinxes have been discovered at Saqqarah, forming a dromos to the Serapcium of Memphis, and another dromos of the same at the Wady Essebona. A Sphinx of the age of the shepherd dynasty Has been found at Tan nis, and another of tin same age is in the Louvre; and a granite Sphinx, found behind the vocal Memnon, and inscribed with the name of Amenophis III., is at. St. Petersburg. An avenue of eriosphiuxes has been found at Karnak. These are each about 17 ft. long, and of the age of Horns, one of the last monarchs of the 18th dynasty. Various small Sphinxes are in the different collections of Europe, but none of any very great antiquity.
The Theban Sphinx, whose myth first appears in Hesiod, is described as having a lion's body, female head, bird's wings, and serpent's tail, ideas probably derived from Phenician sources, which had adopted this symbolical form into the mythology from Egypt. She was said to be the issue of Orthos, the two-headed dog of Geryon, by Chi mera, or of Typhon and Echidna, and was sent into the vicinity of Thebes by .Juno, to punish the transgression of Laius, or, according to other accounts, by Bacchus, Mars, or Pluto. See (Epirus. The Sphinx was a favorite subject of ancient art, and appears in bas-reliefs, ou medals of Chios and other towns, and often as the decorations of arms and furniture. In Assyria and Babylonia, representations of Sphinxes have been found, and the mine are not uncommon on Phenician works of art.
Birch, Mu.s. of Classic Antiquit., ii. p. 27; Quart. Rev. xix. p. 412; Vyse, Pyramids, iii. p. 107; Young, Iheroglyphicks, Pl. 80; Letronne; Grecq. ii. p.'460; Rev. Arch., 1853, p. 715; 186U, p. 20; Schol, Euripid., i. 1, 1134; liesiod, Theog., 326; Creuzer, Sym bola% i. 495; 31illin, Gat. Myth., 502, 505.