Luxor4u

A recent post by Frater got me thinking, the sphinx at Giza has the head of a pharaoh, not going to get into which man but it is a human head. The avenue of the sphinx at Karnak and Luxor have the heads of a ram, Khnum? One found at the temple complex near the ticket office has the tail of a crocodile. Now are all these different representations rightly called sphinx and why?

The sphinx was a creature in Greek mythology - head of a woman, body of a lion, and wings - and I guess it lent its name easily to the guardian figures which early explorers found around the temples of Egypt and which resembled the Greek creature (of a much later civilisation, obviously)

These Egyptian figures typically featured the body of a lion and the head of a pharaoh and were placed at entrances, along ceremonial paths etc as, it's thought, guardians. The ones immediately before Luxor temple feature the head of Nectanebo II. These human headed sphinxes are called androsphinxes, although there are a number in existence bearing the head of Hatshepsut which should more correctly be called gynosphinxes.....if you'll pardon the pedantry!

The great sphinx at Giza is thought to bear the head of Khafre...although not all egyptologists agree.

There are also sphinxes bearing animal or bird heads...representing gods. The commonest at Luxor are probably the ram-headed sphinxes lining the approach to the first pylon at Karnak. These are called criosphinxes and represent the god Amun-Ra.

The crocodile-tailed sphinx at the remains of the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III may have represented the god Sobek. It's headless. I don't know if it bore the head of a crocodile, a man ...or anything else!

Sphinxes with mixtures of body parts of various animals/humans are known...the only commonality seems to be the lion's body.

Although unrelated, other than that each types of Sphinx both Greek and Egyptian are comprised of human and animal parts, the main difference is that the Greek version was a malevolent creature that would ask a riddle and if you did not answer correctly it would tear you to pieces. Both were considered to be guardians, but the Egyptian version was a more benign protective guardian placed at temple sites, or so it is believed.

Oops...just realised.

Luxor temple sphinxes bear head of Nectanebo I (not II as erroneously stated above). Mea culpa.

With the erosion on the Sphinx makes me think that perhaps a great flood did occur but not in a biblical sense but via the Ice Age.

It's possible that as the ice melt in that area that area could've flooded out.