Sphinx, mythological creature with a lion’s body and a human head, an important image in Egyptian and Greek art and legend. The word sphinx was derived by Greek grammarians from the verb sphingein (“to bind” or “to squeeze”), but the etymology is not related to the legend and is dubious. Hesiod, the earliest Greek author to mention the creature, called it Phix.
The earliest and most famous example in art is the colossal recumbent Great Sphinx at Giza, Egypt, dating from the reign of King Khafre (4th king of 4th dynasty, c. 2575–c. 2465 BCE). This is known to be a portrait statue of the king, and the sphinx continued as a royal portrait type through most of Egyptian history. Arabs, however, know the Great Sphinx of Giza by the name of Ab? al-Hawl, or “Father of Terror.”
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