Creature:Sphinx sphinx

A sphinx is a mythological creature that is depicted as a recumbent lion with a human head. It has its origins in sculpted figures of lionesses with female human heads (unless the pharaoh was depicted as the son of the deity of Old Kingdom Egypt in association with their solar deities, Bast or Sekhmet. The sphinx is also used to represent some gods with the use of heads other than human (Karnak with a ram's head and Horus with a falcon's head).The ancient Greeks adapted this image and applied their own name for a male monster, the "strangler", an archaic figure of Greek mythology. Similar creatures of either gender appear throughout South and South-East Asia. In European decorative art, the sphinx enjoyed a major revival during the Renaissance. Later, the sphinx image, something very similar to the original Ancient Egyptian concept, was exported into many other cultures, albeit often interpreted quite differently due to translations of descriptions of the originals and the evolution of the concept in relation to other cultural traditions.