What Is the Sphinx in Mythology?
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There are two quite different sphinxes, and mixing them up is common. The Egyptian sphinx is a guardian figure with a human head and a lion's body. The Greek sphinx is a winged monster who asks a riddle and kills those who fail it.
The sphinx in Egyptian tradition
In Egypt the sphinx was a protective figure, typically with the body of a lion and the head of a king. It combined royal authority with the strength of a predator and was placed to guard sacred sites and approaches to temples.
There is no riddle and no menace towards the respectful. Egyptian sphinxes were built in large numbers, including avenues lined with them, and they were generally male, representing specific rulers rather than a single mythological creature.
The Great Sphinx of Giza
The most famous example was carved from a single outcrop of limestone on the Giza plateau, around seventy three metres long and twenty metres high. It is usually dated to the reign of Khafre, around 2500 BCE, though the dating is debated by some researchers.
The missing nose has attracted many legends, including a persistent story about Napoleon's troops. The damage is documented well before Napoleon arrived, and a fifteenth century account attributes it to deliberate defacement. Erosion and centuries of burial in sand also took a heavy toll.
The Greek sphinx and her riddle
The Greek sphinx is a different creature: female, winged, with a lion's body and a woman's head, and thoroughly hostile. She sat outside Thebes and stopped travellers with a riddle, killing everyone who answered wrongly.
The riddle asks what walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon and three in the evening. Oedipus answered correctly that it is a human being, crawling as an infant, walking upright as an adult, and using a stick in old age. The sphinx then destroyed herself, and Oedipus entered Thebes as its saviour, which begins the far darker part of his story.
Comparing the two
The differences are systematic rather than incidental:
- •Egyptian sphinxes are protective, Greek ones are predatory
- •Egyptian sphinxes are usually male, the Greek sphinx is female
- •Egyptian sphinxes are wingless, the Greek sphinx has wings
- •The riddle appears only in the Greek tradition
Why both exist
The Greek version almost certainly borrowed the visual form from Egypt and the Near East through trade and contact, then attached quite different meaning to it. Borrowing an image and reinventing its significance is extremely common in the history of mythology.
Sphinx like figures also appear in Mesopotamian and Persian art, and the composite lion body with human head recurs widely. What varies is whether the creature is guarding you or hunting you.
What lies under the Great Sphinx
The Great Sphinx has attracted an unusual volume of speculation about hidden chambers, lost archives and much earlier construction dates. Some of this comes from a genuine scientific disagreement about weathering patterns on the enclosure walls.
Surveys using ground penetrating radar and seismic methods have found some cavities in the bedrock, and Egyptologists generally regard these as natural fissures rather than constructed rooms. Mainstream dating to the reign of Khafre rests on the surrounding causeway, temple layout and quarry evidence, which tie the monument to a well documented building programme.
The takeaway
The Egyptian sphinx is a royal guardian with a lion's body and a king's head, while the Greek sphinx is a winged female monster who kills those who fail her riddle, and the Greeks borrowed the form while inventing an entirely different meaning.