Ancient Egyptian girlpower: The female sphinx

Reconstruction of queen Tiye as a sphinx from her throne in the tomb of Kheruef, Thebes  (I took a bit of licence here).
Image by Andrea Sinclair.

It stands to reason that I do not have to introduce the Egyptian sphinx to you. It must be one of the most well known symbols of ancient Egypt, with the enormous limestone sphinx at Giza standing as pinup boy for the entire species. Therefore, I assume you know that the average Egyptian sphinx is an hybrid creature with the body of a lion and the head of a pharaoh.  And the pharaoh is male. 

That’s more or less the party line, right?

The living image of the sun god

 

So this piece is going to mess a bit with that, because in ancient Egypt a ‘sphinx’ was not always a lion, nor was it always male.  At a stretch, and if you are flexible about classifications, it can sometimes have a completely different head (ram – criosphinx, hawk – hieracosphinx, Set animal, etc), so the big cat body is more or less the only constant.  But I will not go down this road here, it is not actually relevant to today’s topic. 

Also, bear in mind that the term itself is a generalisation and it is not ancient Egyptian.   

The Egyptians did not use the word ‘sphinx’ or necessarily think within this simplistic idea range.  The term is much later and from ancient Greek; σφίγξ.  It means ‘strangler, throttler’ and often refers to the female monster who murdered travellers on the road to Thebes (in Greece) right up until the youth Oedipus put a firm stop to her activities and the went on to marry his mum (but that’s another story). 

Female sphinx on a seal gem from the Roman period.  © British Museum, London: https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=434766&partId=1&searchText=1923,0401.700&page=1

In the past there have been attempts to make a linguistic connection for the Greek word σφίγξ with the ancient Egyptian phrase ‘seshep ankh’, ‘living image’, and from there backwards to track a connection to the ancient sphinx, but this idea is pure speculation and driven more by our need to connect the dots, as there is no established direct relationship between the two names.

This misnomer has however led to ideas about the ancient Greek and Aegean sphinxes being female and the Egyptian one, male (in early academic lit. as well).  However, it is much more complicated than this and the ancient Egyptian sphinx does not fit neatly into one tidy box.  The Egyptians instead may have referred to sphinxes in many ways, but the most common type of sphinx was a representation of the pharaoh.  

This is easy to identify because the head wears all the appropriate regalia of an Egyptian king, like various crowns, false beard and uraeus cobra.

Faience figurine of Amenhotep III as a sphinx making an offering, 18th Dynasty. © Metropolitan Museum, New York: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/544498?searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&ft=1972.125&offset=0&rpp=20&pos=1

Sphinxes were all heka which means ‘magical/powerful’, later also described as phty ‘strong/mighty’, and they were often set up as guardians of the Egyptian necropolis. In the late period the ancient Egyptians even had a sphinx god (Tutu, slayer of demons).  They were pretty flexible and polytheists, so their sphinx was not necessarily limited to one name, one god or to one idea.

What I don’t expect most people to know is that the female sphinx was also very much a thing in ancient Egypt. 

In fact, if we pointedly ignore the Giza monument (it gets too much press anyway), the earliest sphinx from Egypt is an Old Kingdom queen, Hetepheres II, a princess and later queen of the 4th Dynasty.  She was a daughter of Khufu who built the Great Pyramid (2470-2447 BCE) and she was important enough to be represented as a sphinx in the same pose as the more famous monument.  Her sphinx was found near her brother and husband Djedefre's pyramid at Abu Roash north of Giza.  Due to size and her pose, she may have been one of a pair, or even a line of statues within the royal necropolis.

Seals with royal sphinxes from the 18th Dynasty. 
Image A. Sinclair. Originals Petrie Museum London.

And that is another thing, there are a selection of poses for sphinxes that were used for royal monuments and they too had their own significance. I am going to call the two most important ones ‘chilled’ and ‘cranky’ sphinx. You will be familiar with the first; the chilled sphinx is passive and lying on its belly with its paws stretched out in front and the tail curled behind a back leg.  The other important sphinx stands upright, is active and often strides forward, trampling on symbolic enemies of Egypt. 

These two are creatures that were associated with different royal roles and with different gods, or aspects of gods. The Giza chilled sphinx was associated with the sun god, later with Horemakhet, because in the 18th Dynasty a king dedicated a stele to this god underneath the monument directly between its paws. It is a fair assumption that this sphinx is the 4th Dynasty king Khafre depicted as the sun god, while which sun god he represents is a bit flexible, as it may be one of a few, like Re, Re-Horakhty, Horemakhet etc. The ruler of Egypt was the living sun god on earth. 

Father and son, Amenhotep III (left) and Thutmose IV (right) as sphinxes from the armrests of 18th Dynasty thrones. 
Images A. Sinclair. Originals in tomb of Anen, Thebes (left) and Metropolitan Museum New York.

On the other hand, the cranky sphinx is most often associated in iconography with warrior gods, like Monthu, and these sphinxes reflected the ruler’s role as defender and protector of his territory.  

 

In the New Kingdom these magical creatures do not have the bodies of large male lions, but instead they are lean black panthers with royal heads.  Often this black is dark blue, but this colour is still technically within the Egyptian value range of black (‘magical black’).  The warlike sphinxes may well always have been panthers.

The earliest images of the warlike sphinx-griffin, reigns of Sahure (left), and Pepi II (right), 5th and 6th Dynasty. 
Both are clearly winged.  Images A. Sinclair (left, original in Berlin) and Jequier 1940, pl 15.

Female sphinxes

 

But back to topic, female sphinxes are not overly common from Egypt, but contrary to what some may tell you, they are not rare. We know they existed throughout the Old Kingdom to the Middle Kingdom, because a few lovely statues have survived. The first is of queen Hetepheres II, as I have already mentioned.  

 

Another statue was discovered in Syria in the early 20th century in a Middle Bronze Age temple.  This too is a chilled sphinx and it names princess Ita, the daughter of Amenemhat II (1932-1896 BCE).  Ita was buried with another sister in their father’s funerary enclosure near his pyramid at Dahshur.  So we know who she was.

Queen Hetepheres II (left) and Princess Ita (right). Sources Wikimedia Commons - John Bodsworth, and
© Louvre AO13075, http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=16668&langue=fr

The statue of this princess is likely to have been a royal gift from her or her father, or even a later king to the king of Qatna, where it was dedicated in the temple of the goddess Ninegal. This may sound odd, but in the 12th Dynasty quite a few states in Syria had close political ties to Egypt, so there are beautiful Egyptian royal objects from their cities. A gift from the Egyptian court by a princess is actually not out of the ordinary, except that unrobbed tombs or temples are not quite as common as we would like them to be.

There are a few more examples of fragments from royal female chilled sphinxes in museums around the globe, sadly they do not conveniently have names to identify the queen, but we sometimes know the king. Two sphinxes come from the 12th Dynasty and probably were from the main temple complex of the sun god at Heliopolis, and one is a queen of Thutmose III from the 18th Dynasty that was taken to Rome in the Roman period.  See links below.

So with the limited resources available to us it is still reasonably clear that female sphinxes were not rare, they were placed in the temples of major gods, or at the mortuary complexes of kings and as well they were sent to foreign kings as gifts. They appear to have been quite popular in Egypt between the Middle and New Kingdoms  (2066-1060 BCE).

Tutankhamen as a panther sphinx on a bowcase from his tomb, 18th Dynasty.  Can you see his wings?  
Image is mirrored and by A. Sinclair.

Winged sphinxes

 

However, like many things Egyptian, the New Kingdom is the place to look for examples of queens immortalised as powerful and magical creatures.  This may be due to the importance that the royal women acquired during the 18th Dynasty (like Ahhotep, Ahmose Nefertari, Hatshepsut, Tiye and Nefertiti), but I am also not entirely prepared to rule out the influence of archaeological accident.  We simply have way more objects and monuments from this period (think Tutankhamen), and female sphinxes are suddenly quite visible if you are looking, like me. 

The feature that has wasted a lot of ink over the last 150 years is that these ladies acquired a ‘new’ look.  In the 18th Dynasty a female sphinx appears with raised wings, which has been attributed to the influence of the Aegean or Syria (depending on an academic’s bias).   Personally I blame Pierre Montet for the Syrian assumption (if you have ever attended a lecture of mine, you will have heard that phrase repeatedly, because he argued this, along with other flawed assumptions about artistic styles … sometimes I even shake my fist for emphasis). 

Female sphinxes from a silver platter dedicated to the ka of a chantress of Neith, Amy. New Kingdom, 19th -20th Dynasty. 
Image A. Sinclair. Original in Cairo Museum.

But I also take issue with everybody else in the 20th century who was so busy arguing about the cultural origin of stylistic features of New Kingdom sphinxes that they didn’t think about what this female sphinx was doing in top ranking Egyptian royal art. Instead a few features like raised wings and diadems were used to argue foreign artists, foreign origin or even meaningless copying of other cultures by Egyptian artists.

The idea that wings are un-Egyptian tends to get jumbled up with female sphinxes not being present in Egypt before 1550 BCE. This assumption is wide of the mark. Obviously I have already mentioned earlier queens and princesses, but there is one other characteristic of Egyptian sphinxes that I have not mentioned … they were winged …  With falcon wings which incidentally provides another connection to solar gods.  However, before the New Kingdom the wings of a sphinx are usually, but not always, lying along the back, regardless of its pose. 

Male winged sphinxes from noble's tombs of the 2nd Intermediate Period and early 18th Dynasty. Image A. Sinclair.
  Originals in the Metropolitan Museum New York (bead left), and Petrie Museum London (seal).

So technically speaking, Egyptian sphinxes were falcon, king and feline hybrid creatures. Not all Egyptian sphinxes have wings, but most cranky sphinxes do before the New Kingdom. To blur the model more, griffins and other magical creatures also sometimes have raised wings in Egyptian art before this time.

In the New Kingdom there are at least two images of male royal sphinxes (one passive and one active) with raised wings from around 1550 BCE, but many more winged sphinxes after this date are female.  So regardless of the subtleties, the pose may be a bit new to us, but not the falcon wings, they are there on an Egyptian sphinx up to a thousand years earlier. They just become more visible.

Detail from a throne of princess Sitamen, daughter of Tiye. Sitamen wears blue nymphaeas and holds symbols of Hathor. 
18th Dynasty, tomb of Yuya and Tjuya.  Image A. Sinclair.

Floral diadems

 

There is another feature that has contributed to this topic other than gender and wings, it is that the queenly sphinxes of the New Kingdom often wear floral diadems, and this too has been used to reinforce an Aegean or Syrian origin argument for the female sphinx, or at least for her New Kingdom popularity, because it is thought to be un-Egyptian.

However, floral diadems were a feature of female cult costume in Egypt from as early as the Old Kingdom, with a limited selection of meaningful flowers being used for these, particularly the blue and white nymphaea lotus, but sometimes the papyrus and the ‘south flower’.  The real change is in the manner of depicting them, as sometimes in the New Kingdom flowers are shown facing frontally, but the flowers themselves won’t have changed … (although I will also point the accusing finger at Montet for arguing Egyptian rosettes were Phoenician chrysanthemums).

Design woven on the hem of a Jubilee tunic of Tutankhamen, tomb of Tutankhamen, 18th Dynasty. Image A. Sinclair.

None of these flowers worn on a queen or princess’s head in a ritual scene in Egypt was unusual, if that queen or princess was represented as a sphinx the same most probably applies. This was a ceremonial crown, not just a pretty garland of flowers.

The floral diadem has been called Hathoric by some Egyptologists, because throughout the pharaonic period it was commonly worn by priestesses in ritual scenes associated with the rather complex goddess Hathor. She was goddess of love, lust, partying, inebriation and the necropolis (possibly if taken incautiously, in that order). These flowers were also common to decorate ritual equipment and votive offerings in her temples.

Priestesses of Hathor wearing white and blue nymphaea diadems in a cult scene from the tomb of Djehutihetep at Bersheh.  Middle Kingdom. Image after Newberry 1895 vol. I, pl. 29.

Incidentally, the other popular and highly significant diadem that may be worn by queen’s sphinxes in ritual scenes, also confirms a connection to Hathor and this was the tall double falcon feathers and modius crown of the chief queen. This too was worn by her for important royal ceremonies.

Tiye as chilled sphinx. Left holding her husband's royal name on a buckle. Right depicted as the goddess Wadjet on a ring from Malqata palace. 18th Dynasty. Image A. Sinclair. Originals in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

What was the significance of a female sphinx?

 

So that is the basic background. Egypt had female sphinxes from historically quite early, at least from the 4th Dynasty, and the first female statue is possibly the earliest sphinx we know about. These sculptures represent female figures who were important enough to match the royal male sphinx in some monumental contexts, like in temples or funerary enclosures. Then they really kick off properly in royal art after about 1600 BCE.

Let’s have a think about that, because the functions of the male sphinxes are relatively clear. They were guardians and defenders of the sun god, or representatives of the sun god, but as living or regenerated representative of the sun, aka the king. Therefore the function of the female sphinx ought to be also relatively clear; she was always a senior royal, either queen or an important princess, perhaps the queen mother. She will not have been decorative any more than the king’s sphinx was.  

Sphinx adoring the name of Hatshepsut (left) and Mutnodjme (right) queen of Horemhab on his coronation monument. 18th Dynasty. Images A. Sinclair. Originals from Prisse d'Avennes 1878, vol. II and Turin Museum.

The Egyptian universe was dualistic, while the pharaoh had to be male, he did not have to actually physically be male, hence the royal women who ruled Egypt as living pharaoh, but who presented themselves as kings. Not as a trick or disguise, but because that was the nature of their world. The king had to be male, but in Egypt there also had to be a representative of the female element at his side to create order and balance. 

The chief queen, the queen mother or a senior princess had to fill this role, depending who was available, and by that I mean alive, what with mortality rates and all.  These royal women were therefore very important to social harmony too. They represented different aspects of solar and protective goddesses, like Hathor, in ritual scenes and at festivals, particularly in the context of a king’s coronation or at his jubilee.  After he was dead they were ritual participants in his rebirth. 

Furniture inlay from Gurob, Queen Tiye holding symbols of eternal rule and flanking her own and her husband's names. Image A. Sinclair. Original in Berlin Museum.

The female sphinx reflected the queen’s role in assuring the king his throne and his eternal rule of Egypt (and the universe). This was achieved by depicting her or a senior princess as chilled sphinx, often in the act of handing him his name and titles, or symbols guaranteeing his rule. The main difference to earlier sphinxes is probably that in the early New Kingdom the chilled sphinx also has mobility, with threat and power inferred by her raised wings, and sometimes she can have human arms instead of forepaws, because paws are actually not very useful for ritual activities.  

The goddess Hathor is here still the main runner up for the goddess they represented, as the queen acted as high priestess of Hathor and her daughters as musician attendants in festival scenes. She stood in for the goddess at important events like the coronation of the king. As Sekhmet, Pachet, Wadjet, Nekhbet or Weret Hekau she could literally hand him his ‘crown’ in the role of the sorceress cobra on his brow.

His and hers sphinxes, Amenhotep III (left) and Tiye (right) from throne armrests in jubilee scenes. Image A. Sinclair. Originals from the tombs of Kheruef and Anen, Thebes.

Her other important role was in defending the king and the sun god from their traditional enemies; as ‘not taking any of your shit’ cranky sphinx. Therefore, in the 18th Dynasty she could also be shown just like the pharaoh as a sphinx trampling upon the bodies of the enemies of Egypt, like queen Tiye above who incidentally suppresses female enemies as symbols of disorder.  
 
In this case, these sphinxes represented the martial lioness and cobra goddesses known to spit fire and defend the sun god from the forces of chaos, such as the Eye of Re, and who were aspects of Hathor again. Goddesses like Sekhmet, Pachet, Wadjet, Nekhbet, Iaret and Weret Hekau (the sorceress) again all filled this role.  When she was this kind of sphinx the queen could be represented as a black panther like the male version, rather than a boring old lion. 

Ostraca from Deir el Medina that has a trial drawing of a queenly sphinx and a fragment of cartonnage reputedly from Thebes, both New Kingdom. Images A. Sinclair. Originals in Cairo and Borchardt 1933.

While we have a few, we don’t have as many representations of queens in these roles as we would perhaps like and it will likely be related to where they were put and the materials they were made from.  We actually don’t have that many examples of kings either from these contexts and the New Kingdom is still where they may be found, particularly from the 14th century (Tiye and A III).  If you exclude the imposing stone statues, the examples we do have come from tomb paintings, seals, ritual vessels, jewellery and royal furniture. 

The latter were made with perishable materials which are long gone or from valuable materials which will have been very attractive to tomb robbers.  But one could argue that these representations will have been common on the ceremonial furniture and jewellery of these powerful women, just like sphinxes were used for the king’s ceremonial objects and to decorate his palace or handed out as royal gifts to his favourites at New Year.  

Royal female sphinxes on a faience offering bowl from a royal residence at Gurob. Late 18th-19th Dynasty. Image A. Sinclair.  Original in Manchester Museum.

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After that rather compact barrage of information and my usual overkill of pictures … (I actually could not put every queenly sphinx here, but the drawings are mostly mine) ... I hope it is clear to all that there is more to an Egyptian sphinx than a guy wearing a fake beard and gaudy stripped handkerchief who incidentally has a lion’s body. Don’t let anyone tell you that the Egyptian sphinx was always male and boring, like that show pony, the Giza sphinx. Not only were ancient Egyptian sphinxes way more complicated than that, they were also female.

Queens kicked arse in the Bronze Age too.

Andrea Sinclair 

 

2019

Queen Tiye as sphinxes from a temple dedicated to her at Seidinga in Nubia.  Here the relationship of the queen to Hathor and the royal uraeus is clear. Image from Prisse d'Avennes 1878, vol. I, pl. 12.

Female sphinxes in museums

 

a) Sphinx of a queen of Thutmose III (1479-1424 BCE), that was discovered in the Roman period temple of Isis in Rome, Museo Scultura Antica Giovanni Barracco Museum: MB 13. 

http://www.museobarracco.it/en/percorsi/percorsi_per_sale/piano_primo/sala_i_arte_egizia/sfinge_femminile_di_una_regina

b) The head of a sphinx of a queen of Senwosret II (1900-1880 BCE) that may be from the Heliopolis temple. Boston Museum of Fine Arts: 2002.609. 
https://www.mfa.org/collections/object/head-of-a-queen-from-a-sphinx-354969

c) Head of a sphinx of a 12th Dynasty queen (1994-1781 BCE) that may be from the Heliopolis temple. Brooklyn Museum: 56.85. 
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects

Don't just trust me, further reading – references

This post is a ‘very’ casually reworked version of a subsection of my doctoral thesis; Outlooks on an International Koiné Style: ‘Hybrid’ Visual Idiom from New Kingdom Elite Iconography’, (2022, open access) publication at Propylaeum.

Liebowitz, HA. 1987. ‘Late Bronze II Ivory Work in Palestine: Evidence of a Cultural Highpoint I’. BASOR 265.

Montet, P. 1937. Les reliques de l’art syrien dans l’Égypte du nouvel empire.(don't do it, it’s a trick)

Preys, R. 2006. ʽLe mythe de la lointaine: Lionne dangereuse et déese bénéfique’, in E. Warmenbol, Sphinx: Les gardiens de l’Égypt.

Ritner, RK. 2008. The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice, SAOC 54.

Stadelmann, R.  2001. ‘Sphinx’, in D.B. Redford, Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt.

Te Velde, H. 1970. ‘The God Heka in Egyptian Theology’. JEOL 21.

Troy, L. 2002. ‘The Ancient Egyptian Queenship as an Icon of the State’. NIN Journal of Gender Studies in Antiquity 3(1).

Wilkinson, RH. 2003. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt.

Zivie-Coche, CM. 1984. ‘Sphinx’, in W. Helck, Lexikon der Ägyptologie V.

Bullshit memes #3: Sphinxes

The meme above and the topic of this post is many things, accurate is not one of them, and for me it is equally an insult to good taste, not to mention an insult to the general public's intelligence.  So I threw together a small ‘how to guide for pseudo-'scientists’' in retaliation, after coming across this travesty on a Facebook group.

Basically: Dear pseudos, go away, do your homework, and then once you’ve got your information correct, come back and dazzle us with your genius.

And listen carefully: Rule number one of identifying an object: don’t Google it, don’t use Pinterest, be a bit sceptical in Wiki … that shit is crazy.

This meme is from the whacky crew at Ancient Global Connections and while I was spoiled for choice among their abundant photoshop marvels that attempt to make spooky connections between ancient cultures, I chose a topic I was already working on and with images that were easy (for me) to identify. 

The post is specifically aimed at sphinxes: magical creatures with the bodies of lions and human heads from the ancient world.  And before we even go there, how original is it that many ancient cultures that knew the potential of fearsome lions and also knew what humans looked like thought that one up when wishing to express ideas about magical power?

This is an Egyptian sphinx, I suspect most ppl could get this one right.  It is however late, from an obscure pharaoh of the 29th Dynasty, ca 390 BCE, Hakor (Hagar or Hakoris).  Photo by Christian Larrieu and © Louvre http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=28065&langue=fr

First get your terms correct

Modern terms used in this monstrosity are, to put it delicately, not clear, nor are they consistent, without even mentioning the casual confusion of nouns and adjectives.  Decide whether you want to name city, culture, religion, empire or region and stick to it.  I understand that may involve more effort, but it will look smarter at the end. 

Oh and btw, Germany did not exist 40,000 years ago.  It was created about 150 years ago.  That is a number sadly lacking in the appropriate number of zeros.

Mesopotamia on the other hand is a word used to describe an entire region around two important rivers, and is inclusive of Syria, western Iran, Quwait, Iraq, and of ancient cultures from Sumer and Akkad to the Seleucids and Medes.  I suspect you used Mesopotamia to label one object out of laziness, when four objects in this crazy cocktail could be labelled ‘Mesopotamian’.

But really, get your terms correct, because at least four captions in this puppy are downright wrong.  Those small inlays from Nimrud in Iraq are not Assyrian, they are not even Neo-Assyrian, (pro tip: where you dig something out of the ground is not a guarantee of where it was made).  They were gifts or war spoils to a Neo-Assyrian king from their north-western neighbours. This is not even new news, we’ve known this since they were discovered in about 1850.

Shell inlay from Nimrud, the original photo has been flipped horizonutally.  But here is where it pays to know your shit.  The museum website says Neo-Assyrian because that is where it was found, but it is northern Syrian/Syro-Hittite, ca 800-700 BCE. Photo © Metropolitan Museum of Art https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/325087?searchField=All&sortBy=relevance&ft=nimrud&offset=20&rpp=20&pos=36

Then get off your bony arse and try to get your dates right

First up, awesomely big date differences achieve very little argument-wise; the Palaeolithic has absolutely no tangible connection to the 1st millennium BCE, without mentioning that the example given is not a sphinx. It is a lion or a lion headed human figure. A little figure of a lion standing upright, a gap of say 40,000 years and an entire continent prove nothing about cultural connections.

But it gets better … I’ll ignore the objects from the other side of the classical period, because they are not my area of expertise, (Burma, Celts, I mean what’s up with ‘Hindu’?.. see notes below), but let’s assume they are just as poorly labelled as their pals.

Seven sphinxes in the meme are roughly contemporary to each other (within a 300-400 year period) and from cultures that were all busily interacting with each other at the time, often living within kilometres of each other, or simply invading for lols …. amazing, they adopted each other’s power symbols …. how meaningful.

The Greek, Egyptian and Persian sphinxes are all contemporary with that bunch of Persian kings who had their eyes on both Greece and Egypt … therefore we actually know they had connections… so that really does rule out spooky entirely ... if you are struggling to picture who, think Leonidas, Xerxes and the application of an unhealthy amount of baby oil.

Finally, adding insult to many injuries, two pairs of objects in this meme belong to the same culture and time ... oops.

Look, I fixed it!

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As with all of the shallow travesties that circulate on the low-rent archaeology groups on Facebook, these memes achieve nothing, except perhaps to impress the (very) uninformed. Fantastic creatures made from combining human and animal parts that were used in ancient art to symbolise power or the divine are seriously not unique to one culture, this practice is very characteristic of us as a species. 

And, as drawing artistic comparisons go, it is cute, but that is all it is.  Even without the farcical inaccuracies, the argument is so shallow even your average Victorian scholar in 1885 would have hesitated to promote it … E minus.

Finally, with regard to the ‘sphinx’, at best it could be claimed that Egypt really nailed this mythical figure in the 3rd millennium in the Near East, and in the early 2nd the Middle Bronze Age, the basic symbol spread to their neighbours and this was then adopted and remodelled all over the shop to become the Greek and Roman figure.  But this is ‘at best’.  Its appearance in sundry unrelated cultures is not going to raise any excitement unless it is exactly the same sphinx and we can draw some sort of a line between them.

Truth is, you cannot arbitrarily take a bunch of loosely related images, showing a similar idea, but not the same characteristics, then bung them together and walk away believing you have proven connections between cultures when you basically haven’t got a clue what you are looking at.   

It honestly took me ten minutes to source the four objects that are not from in my area on the interweebs.  It is simply not that difficult... (and wtf guys, Ebay?).

Dear pseudos, go away, make more of an effort and get back to us.

Andrea Sinclair 

 

2019

Sphinxes from the palace of Darius I at Susa in Iran, ca 510 BCE.  Photo by Christian Larrieu and © Louvre, Paris  http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=12400&langue=fr

The objects that are indiscriminantly ripped off the web

(btw, some of the images from this meme are copyrighted to museum collections)

a) Syro-Hittite shell inlay from the Neo-Assyrian palace at Nimrud in Iraq, 800-700 BCE. Metropolitan Museum, New York.

b) Syro-Hittite stone column base from Samal/Zincirli, south-east Turkey, 800-700 BC. Museum of Oriental Antiquities, Istanbul.

c) Phoenician ivory inlay from the Neo-Assyrian palace at Nimrud in Iraq, 800-700 BCE. Metropolitan Museum, New York.

d) ‘Burma’, wooden statue that you can pick up on Ebay for around 900 US dollars … bargain.

e) Archaic Greek statue from Naxos, Greece, 560 BCE. Metropolitan Museum. New York.

f) Persian palace relief from Persepolis in Iran, 500-400 BCE, British Museum, London.

g) Persian palace relief from Susa in Iran, 510 BCE. Louvre, Paris.

h) Egyptian statue of king Hagar with modern faux inscription, Late Period/29th Dynasty, 390 BCE, Louvre, Paris. 

i) Upright leonine figure from Hohlenstein-Stadel, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, European Palaeolithic (Aurignacian), 35,000 to 40,000 before the present. Ulm Museum.

j) Stone relief from the Sri Thenkalai Varadharaja Perumal Temple, in Thirubuvanai, India, 900-1000 Common Era.

k) Celtic-Iberian bronze coin from Castro, Spain (200-25 BCE). 

Bullshit memes #2: The UFO landing on the Sphinx

 

 

This is another Facebook perennial that I am going to explain for those who are interested in clear answers and good old fashioned evidence, but are not necessarily versed in Near Eastern iconography, in this case ancient Egyptian symbolism.

Those who prefer a good fantasy story over evidence and don’t mind clickbait pseudo sites, may leave this blog post ASAP, as there is, realistically, nothing here that you want to see.

So, back to topic … There is an image that does the rounds on the fringe archaeology groups that claims an ancient Egyptian papyrus shows evidence of a UFO landing on the Sphinx. It is all over the web on sites like Ancient Code, Not from Earth org, Today’s Alternative News and probably every other ramped up clickbait news source touting conspiracy theories and Bigfoot stories. 

As usual for these outfits, they all seem to be providing watered down versions of a claim by a gentleman going by the name of Wayne Herschel who has published a book on this topic.

 

Although to be honest, I would be surprised if that theory is worthy of an entire book, but hey … I bet he thought of lots of cool stuff to make up and lots of people will buy it both literally and figuratively … because … aliens.  

 

Wayne Herschell taking pseudo-science to a new level of stupid

On the other hand, Egyptologists tooling around the web are looking at this image, muttering arcane expletives and moving on, because for someone who has dabbled in ancient Egyptian symbolism it is self evident what the papyrus shows:  it is a fan. 

In fact, this image from the papyrus is a very good example of the phenomenon apophenia (subjective thinking when viewing images, or 'looks-a-bit-like') that also, as usual, has a very hefty dose of cultural ignorance. 

 

This technique is incidentally very important if you are in this for the snake oil selling. Accuracy would ruin everything.

So first of all, let’s have some basic information, because once you have key words you can look this stuff up yourself to confirm my statements.

Detail from the papyrus of Djedkhonsuiuefankh I.  Image Piankoff and Rambova 1957, plate 19.

The image source

The papyrus belonged to Djedkhonsuiuefankh I, a priest of Amen and father of the god (Thoth), who probably lived in the 11th or 10th century (1060-940 BCE). This date is relatively late, being well after the famous kings like Ramesses II or Tutankhamen. Instead, it is in the rather unstable 21st Dynasty during the Third Intermediate Period when mythological papyri were all the rage. 

The papyrus is in the Cairo Museum (no. 96), but will have originally come from this priest’s tomb. It is a Book of the Amduat ('What is in the Underworld'), a funerary text designed to guarantee the dead man a proper afterlife.  All the imagery on a funerary papyrus is a compliment to the process described in the text, because the whole thing exists as a magical machine to allow the dead man regeneration in the next world among the gods. 

 

There is no historical factor to a funerary papyrus, so they are unlikely to slip in an account of seeing a flying saucer land on the sphinx … really.

The section of the papyrus with said flying saucer shows the goddess of the sky Nut stretched out over a divine boat containing the soul bird, the ba.  On the right of this boat Nut’s father Shu (god of air) holds her up away from her partner Geb (god of earth). The sphinx is tucked into the left corner under Nut’s legs and has the king’s white crown in front of it and a royal wig behind.  Above the sphinx is a shrine representing the necropolis, or place of the dead.  The ‘UFO’ is upon his back.

Detail from the papyrus of Djedkhonsuiuefankh I. Image Wikipedia.

The accompanying text states: 

‘Osiris, priest of Amen, Djedkhonsu, the justified one in the Netherworld’.

This is where context is very important. You can’t just take a single frame from an image and jump to conclusions, ignoring all the parts that make up the whole, like text and other visual elements. The entire scene dictates the meaning and the sphinx here is part of the magical spell. It likely represents the dead man as Osiris in the Netherworld (the necropolis) during the night, or just before the moment of dawn.

At dawn the deceased transforms into the sun god Re as the soul bird in the boat and sails through the heavens (over the body of the goddess Nut) during the day. To make sure the message is absolutely clear, the ba bird on the papyrus is captioned: ‘Re, he rests in life’.

So a few things are obvious, it is not an image of the Sphinx (Giza pyramids), it is a magical sphinx. Although the placement below a necropolis shrine could infer it is a statue associated with the tomb. But this still makes it a solar symbol associated with the dead man and it incidentally infers that the 'UFO' is impressively small. 

Symbol or statue, the scene in this papyrus is just one component in a magical process. It represents the Egyptian idea of the perpetual cycle of the universe. After they died all Egyptians wished to live at night in the realm of the dead as Osiris and then to be reborn like the sun from the body of Nut in the morning and to travel in the sun god’s boat through the heavens every day … for ever (it was probably quite crowded). 

Flying saucer from the film Forbidden Planet (1957). Image Wikipedia

The UFO

In the original article on CNN: iReport, Ancient Code  and for that matter, in all the other copycat pieces, the writers claim that this papyrus shows evidence of the ‘ship of Ra landing on the sphinx’. Or they claim it shows ‘a disc-shaped object emitting coloured bright light and landing on top of a sphinx’.

This rationale only works under three circumstances; 1) you are not fussed about scale.  2) you are aware of how a flying saucer looks specifically from old American and UK horror movies, which is incidentally the only way you might have an opinion about a flying saucer, because they are a modern myth. 

And more importantly; 3) this rationale only works if you only know the bare basics of ancient Egyptian symbolism, because human beings have an infinite capacity for imagination and if you want to understand ancient symbolism, you have to understand their mindset, not ours.

The fan

In fact, the ‘disc-shaped’ spaceship is the semi-circular support that was designed for attaching ostrich feathers to a fan. What these articles describe as the ‘bright light’ radiating from the UFO is the different coloured ostrich feathers. The object in fact has no depth, it is flat and viewed from the front.

The flying saucer’s tripod legs are actually two related things, the vertical handle that is attached to the fan in the centre and a simplified papyrus flower. Here this flower is drawn as a single curved line. It is only incidental that the ends of the papyrus touch the sphinx’s body in the drawing.

Amenhotep I and II as a sphinxes on a stele from Deir el Medina. Cairo Museum. 

Photo by Circe Subara at Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/141626659@N04/26556245907/

The sphinx with a fan motif was ubiquitous to Egyptian royal imagery, particularly during and after the New Kingdom. The sphinx may be reclining like the one on this papyrus or it may be represented trampling the traditional enemies of Egypt. In most cases it is a visual metaphor for the king, because that was his job, representing the living sun god, conquering the forces of disorder and by this maintaining universal harmony. 

 Thutmose IV as a sphinx from his silver chariot. Tomb of Thutmose IV.  

Image Carter and Newberry 1904, plate XI.

How the scene of a sphinx with a fan was depicted in ancient Egyptian art was flexible and depended on medium, period and naturally on realism. Because these royal fans existed. The position of fanbearer to the king was very prestigious and fans were decorated with precious materials, different designs and the feathers were dyed in different ways. Although dark blue and light blue were preferred colours, and this papyrus is no exception, as the feathers are alternatively dark blue and light blue.

 Left: The god Monthu as hieracosphinx from a funerary boat. Tomb of Amenhotep II.  

Right: Tutankhamen as sphinx from a chariot plaque. Tomb of Tutankhamen.  

Illustrations A. Sinclair.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this small sphinx and fan drawing is the use of royal solar symbolism (crown, wig, fan, sphinx) to represent the dead man and his tomb in the necropolis in a mythological scene on a funerary papyrus.  But this may simply be related to the period. Because the 21st Dynasty is known for uniting royal power with priestly offices.

What the scene from Djedkhonsuiuefankh's papyrus definitely is not, however, is evidence of a UFO with tripod legs landing on a sphinx, or the Giza Sphinx … whatever... in around 1000 BCE.

Andrea Sinclair

 

2018

Ostrich fan from the tomb of Tutankhamen. 

Image Desroches-Noblecourt 1963, Tutankhamen, fig, 123.

Afterword

On showing the UFO image to my partner and explaining the kerfuffle to him, because astonishingly he had never seen it, his response was:

‘that’s not a UFO, it is clearly a mobile police lamp and the sphinx is rushing to the scene of a crime’ 

 

… I’ll buy that … basically about as much as I’d buy the UFO story.  

Because both responses are dependant on subjective experience.

But I quite like the idea of the sphinx with siren blazing chasing after criminals.

References

Papyrus of Djedkhonsuiuefankh I

Niwinski, A. 1989. Studies on the Illustrated Theban Funerary Papyri of the 11th and 10th Centuries B.C. Freiburg.

Piankoff, A. and N. Rambova 1957. The Mythological Papyri. Bollingen Series XL. 

No, I am not linking Wayne Herschell's website, he does enough damage without my help.