Editing Sphinx (section)

== Europe ==
[[File:La Granja de San Ildefonso Sfinx01.jpg|thumb|[[La Granja (palace)|La Granja]], Spain, mid-18th century]]

The revived [[Mannerism|Mannerist]] sphinx of the late 15th century is sometimes thought of as the "French sphinx". Her coiffed head is erect and she has the breasts of a young woman. Often she wears ear drops and [[pearl]]s as ornaments. Her body is naturalistically rendered as a recumbent lioness. Such sphinxes were revived when the ''[[Grotesque|grottesche]]'' or "grotesque" decorations of the unearthed ''[[Domus Aurea]]'' of [[Nero]] were brought to light in late 15th-century Rome, and she was incorporated into the classical vocabulary of [[Arabesque (European art)|arabesque]] designs that spread throughout Europe in engravings during the 16th and 17th centuries. Sphinxes were included in the decoration of the ''[[loggia]]'' of the [[Vatican Palace]] by the workshop of [[Raphael]] (1515–20), which updated the vocabulary of the Roman ''grottesche''.

The first appearances of sphinxes in French art are in the [[School of Fontainebleau]] in the 1520s and 1530s and she continues into the [[Baroque|Late Baroque]] style of the French [[Regence|Régence]] (1715&ndash;1723). From France, she spread throughout Europe, becoming a regular feature of the outdoors decorative sculpture of 18th-century palace gardens, as in the [[Belvedere (palace)|Upper Belvedere Palace]] in [[Vienna]], [[Sanssouci Park]] in [[Potsdam]], [[La Granja (palace)|La Granja]] in Spain, [[Branicki Palace, Białystok|Branicki Palace]] in [[Białystok]], or the late [[Rococo]] examples in the grounds of the Portuguese [[Queluz National Palace]] (of perhaps the 1760s), with [[Ruff (clothing)|ruff]]s and clothed chests ending with a little cape.

[[File:Fernand Khnopff - Caresses - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright=1.75|''Caresses'' (1896) by [[Fernand Khnopff]], a [[Symbolism (movement)|Symbolist]] depiction of [[Oedipus]] and the Sphinx<ref>{{cite web |author=Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium |author-link=Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium |year=2017 |title=Caresses |url=https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/asset/-/_AGlYSd0kETwGw |publisher=Google Arts and Culture}}{{dead link|date=June 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>]]

Sphinxes are a feature of the [[Neoclassical architecture|neoclassical]] interior decorations of [[Robert Adam]] and his followers, returning closer to the undressed style of the ''grottesche''. They had an equal appeal to artists and designers of the [[Romanticism]] and subsequent [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolism]] movements in the 19th century. Most of these sphinxes alluded to the Greek sphinx and the myth of [[Oedipus]], rather than the Egyptian, although they may not have wings.

[[Decadent movement|The Decadent Movement]], a European movement that was attributed to the notion of "decadence" around the 1890s,<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Goldfarb |first=Russell M. |date=1962 |title=Late Victorian Decadence |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/427899 |journal=The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=369–373 |doi=10.2307/427899 |jstor=427899 |issn=0021-8529|url-access=subscription }}</ref> implores the main notion of finding beauty in the decline of civilization in the form of macabre or taboo subjects<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Atkinson |first=Tully |date=2003 |title=The Sphinx: Wilde's Decadent Poem and Its Place in "Fin-De-Siècle" Letters |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/45270114 |journal=The Wildean |issue=23 |pages=44–54 |jstor=45270114 |issn=1357-4949}}</ref> such as the sphinx. The motif of the sphinx can also be connected to the motif of the "femme fatale" figure in decadent texts in which a typically female-like figure or beast seduces and murders men. The "femme fatale" is used to establish a decline or decay ranging from perversion, death, prostitution, and other taboos of Victorian society.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lyytikäinen |first=Pirjo |url=https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/31117/9789517464390_changing_scenes-REVISED.pdf?sequence=1#page=12 |title=Changing Scenes: Encounters between European and Finnish Fin de Siècle |publisher=The Finnish Literature Society |year=2003 |isbn=978-952-222-990-8 |pages=12–30}}</ref>

Deborah Barker discusses, in "The Riddle of the Sphinx: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's The Story of Avis",<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Barker |first=Deborah |date=January 1998 |title=The riddle of the Sphinx: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's The Story of Avis |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10436929808580211 |journal=Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory |language=en |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=31–64 |doi=10.1080/10436929808580211 |issn=1043-6928|url-access=subscription }}</ref> how the painter Avis used the Sphinx as a representation of what women truly were in the nineteenth century. Avis thought that she could solve the prejudice that resulted from her gender and race through the Sphinx to show how she is an artist by tapping into the logic of Western Culture and visual recognition and classification. Napoleon on the other hand felt that the Sphinx was a representation of the empire he created, while Avis' father Hegel Dobell thought that the Sphinx represented just an idea.

Oscar Wilde, a known Decadent writer, utilized this motif in his poem "The Sphinx".<ref>{{Cite web |title="The Sphinx" by Oscar Wilde |url=https://victorianweb.org/authors/wilde/sphinx.html |access-date=2024-03-13 |website=victorianweb.org}}</ref> The poem itself establishes a connection between the Sphinx and the French due to underlying social decline such as the French Empire collapsing.<ref name=":0" /> Wilde describes the sphinx as a sort of half-cat and half-woman that is connected to many mythological events, typically that of Egypt and Greece, as well as how the mysterious creature is surrounded by lust and death. The writer James Thomson, similarly to Wilde, also utilizes the motif of the sphinx in his poem "The City of Dreadful Night".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Foundation |first=Poetry |date=2024-03-12 |title=The City of Dreadful Night by James Thomson (Bysshe Vanolis) |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45407/the-city-of-dreadful-night |access-date=2024-03-13 |website=Poetry Foundation |language=en}}</ref> The poem revolves around an isolated and anxious man who runs throughout the city, his anxiety and fears taking on the personified image of a grandiose beast that has the makeup of a dragon and lion. While not inherently stated, the beast is likely that of a decadent form of a sphinx due to its appearance and grand nature.

=== Greece ===
[[File:Amth33.jpg|thumb|260px|A sphinx or a female centaur on a Mycenaean larnax from [[Tanagra]], 14th – 12th century BC, in the [[Archaeological Museum of Thebes]].]]

In the [[Bronze Age]], the Hellenes had trade and cultural contacts with Egypt. Before the time that [[Alexander the Great]] occupied Egypt, the Greek name, ''sphinx'', was already applied to these statues.{{citation needed|date=December 2019}} The historians and geographers of Greece such as [[Herodotus]] wrote extensively about Egyptian culture.

There was a single ''sphinx'' in Greek mythology, a unique demon of destruction and bad luck. [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]] describes the sphinx as having a woman's face, the body and tail of a lion and the wings of a bird.<ref name="apollod-358">[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], Library [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D5%3Asection%3D8 Apollod. 3.5.8]</ref> [[Pliny the Elder]] mentions that Ethiopia produces plenty of sphinxes, with brown hair and breasts,<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Nat.+8.30 Pliny the Elder, Natural History 8.30 ]</ref> corroborated by 20th-century archeologists.<ref>p. 5,6,24. Fattovich, Rodolfo. "Remarks on the pre-Aksumite period in northern Ethiopia." ''Journal of Ethiopian Studies'' 23 (1990): 1-33.</ref> [[Statius]] describes her as a winged monster, with pallid cheeks, eyes tainted with corruption, plumes clotted with gore and talons on livid hands.<ref>[https://www.theoi.com/Text/StatiusThebaid2.html Statius, Thebaid, 2.496 ]</ref> Sometimes, the wings are specified to be those of an [[eagle]], and the tail to be [[snake|serpent]]-headed.{{citation needed|date=December 2019}} According to [[Hesiod]], the Sphinx was a daughter of [[Orthrus]] and an unknown she—either the [[Chimera (mythology)|Chimera]], [[Echidna (mythology)|Echidna]], or [[Ceto]].<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/hesiod-theogony/2018/pb_LCL057.29.xml 326&ndash;327]. Who is meant as the mother is unclear, the problem arising from the ambiguous referent of the pronoun "she" in line 326 of the ''Theogony'', see Clay, [https://archive.org/details/hesiodscosmos0000clay/page/159 p.159, note 34]; Most, [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/hesiod-theogony/2018/pb_LCL057.29.xml p. 29 n. 20]; Gantz, pp. 23&ndash;24.</ref> According to Apollodorus<ref name="apollod-358" /> and [[Lasus of Hermione|Lasus]],<ref>[[iarchive:in.ernet.dli.2015.233311/page/n237|Lasus fr. 3, on ''Lyra Graeca II'']]</ref> she was a daughter of Echidna and [[Typhon]].

The sphinx was the emblem of the ancient city-state of [[Chios]], and appeared on seals and the obverse side of coins from the 6th century BC until the 3rd century AD.<ref>{{cite book|last= Sear|first= David|title=Greek Imperial coins and their values – The Local Coinages of the Roman Empire|year=2010|publisher=Nabu Press|page=xiv}}</ref>

==== Riddle of the Sphinx ====
<!-- This section is linked from [[Great Sphinx of Giza]] -->
{{redirect|Riddle of the Sphinx}}
[[File:Oedipus and the Sphinx of Thebes, Red Figure Kylix, c. 470 BC, from Vulci, attributed to the Oedipus Painter, Vatican Museums (9665213064).jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Attic red-figure kylix c. 470 BCE: Oedipus ponders the riddle of the Sphinx]]
The Sphinx is said to have guarded the entrance to<!--any other area needs to be made specific--> the Greek city of Thebes, asking a [[riddle]] to travellers to allow them passage. The exact riddle asked by the Sphinx was not specified by early tellers of the myth, and was not standardized as the one given below until late in Greek history.<ref>{{cite book|last= Edmunds|first= Lowell|title=The Sphinx in the Oedipus Legend|year=1981|publisher=Hain|location=Königstein im Taunus|isbn=3-445-02184-8}}</ref>

It was said in late lore that [[Hera]] or [[Ares]] sent the Sphinx from her [[Aethiopia]]n homeland (the Greeks always remembered the foreign origin of the Sphinx) to [[Thebes (Greece)|Thebes]] in Greece where she asked all passersby the most famous riddle in history: "Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?" She strangled and devoured anyone who could not answer. [[Oedipus]] solved the riddle by answering: "Man—who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then uses a walking stick in old age".<ref name="apollod-358" /> In some lesser accounts,<ref>{{cite book|last=Grimal| first=Pierre|others=trans. A. R. Maxwell-Hyslop|title=The Dictionary of Classical Mythology|isbn=0-631-20102-5|publisher=Blackwell Publishing|year=1996}} (entry "Oedipus", p. 324)</ref> there was a second riddle: "There are two sisters: one gives birth to the other and she, in turn, gives birth to the first. Who are the two sisters?" The answer is "day and night" (both words—''[[wiktionary:ἡμέρα|ἡμέρα]]'' and ''[[wiktionary:νύξ|νύξ]]'', respectively—are feminine in Ancient Greek). This second riddle is also found in a Gascon version of the myth and could be very ancient.<ref>Julien d'Huy (2012). [https://ehess.academia.edu/JuliendHuy/Papers/1949877/LAquitaine_sur_la_route_dOedipe_La_Sphinge_comme_motif_prehistorique._-_Bulletin_de_la_SERPE_61_2012_15-21 L'Aquitaine sur la route d'Oedipe? La Sphinge comme motif préhistorique.] ''Bulletin de la SERPE'', 61: 15-21.</ref>

Bested at last, the Sphinx then threw herself from her high rock and died;<ref>Apollod. 3.5.8</ref> or, in some versions Oedipus killed her.<ref>"Sphinx"{{cite book|last=Hornblower|first=Simon|others=Anthony Spawforth, Esther Eidinow|title=Oxford Classical Dictionary|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2012}}</ref> An alternative version tells that she devoured herself.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} In both cases, Oedipus can therefore be recognized as a "[[Liminality|liminal]]" or threshold figure, helping effect the transition between the old religious practices, represented by the death of the Sphinx, and the rise of the new, [[Twelve Olympians|Olympian]] gods.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}}

===== The riddle in popular culture =====
In [[Jean Cocteau]]'s retelling of the Oedipus legend, ''[[The Infernal Machine (play)|The Infernal Machine]]'', the Sphinx tells Oedipus the answer to the riddle in order to kill herself so that she did not have to kill any more, and also to make him love her. He leaves without ever thanking her for giving him the answer to the riddle. The scene ends when the Sphinx and [[Anubis]] ascend back to the heavens.

There are mythic, anthropological, psychoanalytic and parodic interpretations of the Riddle of the Sphinx, and of Oedipus's answer to it. [[Sigmund Freud]] describes "the question of where babies come from" as a riddle of the Sphinx.<ref>'An Autobiographical Study', Sigmund Freud, W. W. Norton & Company, 1963, [https://books.google.com/books?id=xkU5eiigOZoC&dq=freud%20Autobiographical%20Study&pg=PA39 p.39]</ref>

Numerous riddle books use the Sphinx in their title or illustrations.<ref>Regier, ''Book of the Sphinx'', chapter 4.</ref><gallery>
File:Marble stele (grave marker) of a youth and a little girl 530 BCE Greece.jpg|Funerary stele, 530 BC, [[Greece]]
File:Limestone funerary stele (shaft) surmounted by two sphinxes Greece 530 BCE.jpg|[[Cesnola Sphinx Funerary Stele|Limestone funerary stele (shaft) surmounted by two sphinxes]]. Greece, 5th century BC.
File:Marble capital and finial in the form of a sphinx.jpg|Marble capital and finial in the form of a sphinx, 530 BC
File:Carved tomb in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum - panoramio.jpg|Sphinxes on the [[Lycian sarcophagus of Sidon]] (430–420 BC)
File:Naxos Sphinx with humans for size.jpg|The [[Sphinx of Naxos]], on its 12.5-meter [[Ionic column]], [[Delphi]], 560 BC (reconstitution)
</gallery>

=== Romania ===
[[File:TheSphinx.jpg|thumb|right|[[Sphinx (Romania)|Sfinxul]] natural rock formation in the Bucegi Mountains]]
[[Sphinx (Romania)|Sfinxul]] is a natural rock formation in the [[Bucegi Natural Park]] which is in the Bucegi Mountains of Romania. This rock formation is named for its resemblance to the Sphinx of Giza, and is located at an altitude of {{convert|2,216|m|ft|abbr=off}} within the Babele complex of rock formations.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.travelworld.ro/romanesc/legende/sfinx.php|title=Sfinxul din Muntii Bucegi|publisher=Travelworld.ro|accessdate=13 March 2017}}</ref><ref name=natureFlip>{{cite web
| url = https://www.natureflip.com/bucegi-natural-park
| title = Bucegi Natural Park
| publisher = Nature Flip
| editor = Louise McTigue
| year = 2014
| accessdate = 17 June 2014
| quote = Latitude: 45.382416 Longitude: 25.449116. About Bucegi Natural Park: Located in south central Romania in the Bucegi Mountains, Bucegi Natural Park covers a total area of {{convert|325|km2|sqmi|abbr=on}}. Half falls within the Dâmbovita county with the remainder split relatively equally between Prahova and Brasov. Unsurprisingly, given its location, it is a mountainous landscape with caves, canyons, sinkholes, valleys and waterfalls, alongside meadows and forests. Significant features include the Babele (Old Women) and the Sphinx.
}}</ref>