Artwork Page for Head of a Sphinx

Details / Information for Head of a Sphinx

Head of a Sphinx

540–520 BCE

Greece, Archaic period

Medium
marble
Measurements
Overall: 27 x 20.5 x 26.3 cm (10 5/8 x 8 1/16 x 10 3/8 in.)
Weight: 16.103 kg (35.5 lbs.)
Credit Line
Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust 1928.858
Public Domain
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Location
102B Greek
Print
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Did You Know?

Greek sphinxes were often placed on top of columns or grave stelai as guardian figures.

Description

This female head once belonged to a sphinx, a mythological hybrid creature with the head of a woman and body of a winged lion. Her short cylindrical crown, known as a polos, helps to identify her as a sphinx, as does the slope of her hair and neck, which once continued onto a feline body. Also common in ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern art (though more often in male form), the sphinx is best known in Greek mythology for devouring passersby who could not answer her riddle outside the Boiotian city of Thebes. Stone sphinxes like this one served as both votive offerings and grave monuments in Archaic Greece.

Head of a Sphinx

540–520 BCE

Greece, Archaic period

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