Mythological creature with a lion's body and a human's head.
It figures prominently in Egyptian and Greek art and legend. The winged sphinx of Thebes was said to have terrorized people by demanding the answer to a riddle taught to her by the
What is it that has one voice and yet becomes successively four-footed, then two-footed, then three-footed?
and devoured every person who answered incorrectly. When {{link=Oedipus">Oedipus correctly answered "man"
who crawls on all fours in infancy, walks on two feet when grown, and leans on a staff in old age
the sphinx killed herself. The earliest and most famous example in art is the Great Sphinx at Giza in Egypt, built с 2500 BC. The sphinx appeared in the Greek world с 1600 BC and in Mesopotamia с 1500 BC.
The Great Sphinx at Giza, 4th dynasty
E. Streichan/Shostal Associates