Sphinx - Greek Sphinx

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Sphinx, Sphinx - 19th century and symbolism, Sphinx - Egyptian sphinx, Sphinx - Greek Sphinx, Sphinx - Mannerist Sphinx, Sphinx - Similar creatures, Great Sphinx of Giza, Egypt, Giza

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Sphinx - Greek Sphinx: Encyclopedia - Sphinx

A Sphinx is an iconic image of a recumbent lion with a human head, invented by the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom, but a cultural import in archaic Greek mythology, where it received its name (Greek Σφινξ, "strangler"). The best known is the Great Sphinx of Giza. Sphinx - Egyptian sphinx. The Egyptian sphinx is an ancient iconic mythical creature usually comprised of a recumbent lion – an animal with sacred solar associations – with a human head, usually that of a pharaoh. Main ...

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Sphinx - Greek Sphinx: Encyclopedia II - Sphinx - Greek Sphinx There was a single Sphinx in Greek mythology, a unique demon of destruction and bad luck, according to Hesiod a daughter of the Chimaera and Orthrus, or, according to others, of Typhon and Echidna— all of these chthonic figures. She was represented in vase-painting and bas-reliefs most often seated upright rather than recumbent, as a winged lion with a woman's head; or she was a woman with the paws, claws and breasts of a lion, a serpent's tail and birdlike wings. Hera or Ares sent the Sphinx from her Ethiopian homeland (for the Gre ...

In ancient Egypt, the Sphinx is a male statue of a lion with the head of a human, sometimes with wings. Most sphinxes however represent a king in his appearance as the sun god. The name "sphinx" was applied to the portraits of kings by the Greeks who visited Egypt in later centuries, because of the similarity of these statues to their Sphinx.

The best known specimen is the Great Sphinx of Gizeh (on the western bank of the Nile) which is not a sphinx at all but the representation of the head of king Khaf-Ra (Chephren) on the body of a crouching body. It was supposedly built in the 4th dynasty (2723-2563 BCE), although others claim it dates back to the 7th-5th millennium.

The Greek Sphinx was a demon of death and destruction and bad luck. She was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna. It was a female creature, sometimes depicted as a winged lion with a feminine head, and sometimes as a female with the breast, paws and claws of a lion, a snake tail and bird wings. She sat on a high rock near Thebes and posed a riddle to all who passed. The riddle was: "What animal is that which in the morning goes on four feet, at noon on two, and in the evening upon three?" Those who could not solve the riddle were strangled by her. Finally Oedipus came along and he was the only who could answer that it was "Man, who in childhood creeps on hands and knees, in manhood walks erect, and in old age with the aid of a staff." The Sphinx was so mortified at the solving of her riddle that she cast herself down from the rock and perished.

The name 'sphinx' is derived from the Greek sphingo, which means "to strangle". In ancient Assyrian myths, the sphinx usually appears as a guardian of temple entrances.

Sphinx - Greek Sphinx: Mysticism Magick Dictionary on SPHINX

SPHINX

It is the very symbol of "Mystery" itself. The oldest and most puzzling monument of Egypt, its origin is unknown, even to the Egyptians. The mystery of its origin can be summed up in its riddle to Oedipus, the answer to which was "man." The Hebrew for "sphinx" is Baal Taalumoth or "Lord of Secrets." Another Hebrew word for "secret" is sod (cf. "Sodom") and the Sphinx's connection with Oedipus ("He of the Swollen Foot") suggests a sexual origin to the secret. Although there were many sphinxes, at its best known point it takes the form of the tetramorph, having the body of a bull, the face and breast of a woman, the feet and tail of a lion, and the wings of a bird. Although the word means "strangulation" in Greek, there is evidence that this was not originally a Greek word. The Arabic word for "sphinx" is Abul Hawi, "Father of Terror" and in Egyptian the word was Hu, standing for Harmachi, i.e., "Horus-on-the-horizon." The Sphinx was originally made of red stone or painted red, for unknown reasons. (To attract the green celestial influences?)

(See also: SPHINX, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

Sphinx - Greek Sphinx: New Age Spirituality Dictionary on Sphinx

Sphinx

(Egyptian - arranged after the order of Enoch) The mythical sphinx has a human head and a lion's body. In ancient Egypt, it originally was represented an ancient lion goddess.

Later the lion's head was replaced with the head of the reigning pharaoh. It also represented the sky-god Horus. From Egypt the idea of the sphinx spread to the Syrians and Phoenicians and finally to the Greeks. These peoples gave the creature the head and bust of a woman. They added an eagle's wings to represent majesty and a long serpent's tail to indicate wiliness. In later Greek literature the sphinx was no monster, but a beautiful, wise, and mysterious woman.

According to a legend this monster put a riddle to all those who passed by and devoured those who failed to guess it. After many had died in this way, the Theban hero Oedipus answered the riddle correctly and so caused the monster's death. The great Egyptian sphinx at Giza gazes across the Nile, to the east. It was carved from a solid block of stone about 3000 BC, and it is 187 ft long. The head and bust were carved from a solid block of rock left in a quarry from which stone was taken for the Great Pyramid. The paws were built up with stone. It is thought that a temple stood between the legs and that Egyptians came here to worship the rising sun. The sacrificial altar that is now located between the paws was built by the Romans.

Sphinx - Greek Sphinx: Spiritual Theosophical Dictionary on Harmachus

Harmachus (Ancient Greek) The Egyptian Sphinx, called Har-em-chu or "Horus (the Sun) in the Horizon", a form of Ra the sun-god; esoterically the risen god. An inscription on a tablet reads "0 blessed Ra Harmachus Thou careerest by him in triumph. 0 shine, Amoun-Ra Harmachus self-generated ‘.

The temple of the Sphinx was discovered by Mariette Bey close to the Sphinx, near the great Pyramid of Gizeh All the Egyptologists agree in pronouncing the Sphinx and her temple the "oldest religious monument of the world " - at any rate of Egypt.

"The principal chamber", writes the late Mr. Fergusson "in the form of a cross, is supported by piers, simple prisms of Syenite granite without base or capital . . no sculptures or inscriptions of any sort are found on the walls of this temple, no ornament or symbol nor any image in the sanctuary". This proves the enormous antiquity of both the Sphinx and the temple. "The great bearded Sphinx of the Pyramids of Gizeh is the symbol of Harmachus, the same as each Egyptian Pharaoh who bore, in the inscriptions, the name of ‘living form of the Solar Sphinx upon the Earth ‘,"writes Brugsh Bey. And Renan recalls that "at one time the Egyptians were said to have temples without sculptured images" (Bonwick).

Not only the Egyptians but every nation of the earth began with temples devoid of idols and even of symbols. It is only when the remembrance of the great abstract truths and of the primordial Wisdom taught to humanity by the dynasties of the divine kings died out that men had to resort to mementos and symbology. In the story of Horus in some tablets of Edfou, Rouge found an inscription showing that the god had once assumed "the shape of a human-headed lion to gain advantage over his enemy Typhon.

Certainly Horus was so adored in Leontopolis. He is the real Sphinx. That accounts, too, for the lion figure being sometimes seen on each side of Isis. . . It was her child." (Bonwick.) And yet the story of Harmachus, or Har em-chu, is still left untold to the world, nor is it likely to he divulged to this generation. (See "Sphinx".)

Sphinx - Greek Sphinx: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Harmachis

Harmachis (Greek) Harmachus (Latin) Heru-khuti (Egyptian) Horus of the two horizons, an aspect of the god referring particularly to the sun god Ra. The two horizons represent the day sun and the night sun, or sunrise and sunset.

The principal sites of this worship were at Annu (Heliopolis) and Apollonopolis. The largest monument of Heru-khuti is the famous Sphinx near the pyramids of Gizeh. The meanings of Harmachis, the Sphinx, are both numerous and perplexing, but one of the most illuminating is that it was the symbol of the risen god-man, the type-figure of success achieved under the most difficult and trying ordeals of the initiatory cycle.

Sphinx - Greek Sphinx: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Harivamsa, Harivansa

Sphinx - Greek Sphinx: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Criocephalus

Criocephalus (from Greek kriokephalos ram-headed)

Ram-headed; applied to representations of deities with the head of a ram, as Khnum and Ammon in Egypt, and the ram-headed sphinxes. Sometimes ram's horns are used, as in representations of Moses, to signify a high initiate but, on the other hand, the meaning is often phallic, signifying productive, generative power. A connection with the zodiacal sign Aries is highly probable, as for instance when the equinox passes from the sign of the Bull into the sign of the Ram.

Sphinx - Greek Sphinx: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Oedipus, Oidipous

Oedipus Oidipous (Greek) Swollen-footed; Theban hero, son of Laius, named by the shepherd who found him with his feet swollen from the holes bored in them when he was exposed by his father, as it was predicted that he would kill his father and marry his mother -- which he subsequently did. In many cosmogonies there are characters who slay their fathers or who are represented as both husband and son of the same goddess. This symbolism, being interpreted literally in Oedipus' case, has made a fine story of horror for the tragedians.

Oedipus is also famous for having solved the riddle of the Theban Sphinx. Oedipus' romantic and tragic history formed the theme of three plays by Sophocles and by Aeschylus. The essential significance of the story is the inescapable consequences following upon karmic causes, from which there is no escape once these causes have been set in motion by man.

(See also: Oedipus, Oidipous, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Sphinx - Greek Sphinx: Spiritual Theosophical Dictionary on Cherubim

Cherubim (Hebrew, Jewish) According to the Kabbalists, a group of angels, which they specially associated with the Sephira Jesod. in Christian teaching, an order of angels who are "watchers".

Genesis places Cherubim to guard the lost Eden, and the O.T. frequently refers to them as guardians of the divine glory. Two winged representations in gold were placed over the Ark of the Covenant; colossal figures of the same were also placed in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Temple of Solomon. Ezekiel describes them in poetic language.

Each Cherub appears to have been a compound figure with four faces - of a man, eagle, lion, and ox, and was certainly winged. Parkhurst, in voc. Cherub, suggests that the derivation of the word is from K, a particle of similitude, and RB or RUB, greatness, master, majesty, and so an image of godhead. Many other nations have displayed similar figures as symbols of deity ; e.g., the Egyptians in their figures of Serapis. as Macrohius describes in his Saturnalia; the Greeks had their triple-headed Hecate, and the Latins had three-faced images of Diana, as Ovid tells us, ecce procul ternis Hecate variata figuris. Virgil also describes her in the fourth Book of the Eneid.

Porphyry and Eusebius write the same of Proserpine. The Vandals had a many-headed deity they called Triglaf. The ancient German races had an idol Rodigast with human body and heads of the ox, eagle, and man. The Persians have some figures of Mithras with a man’s body, lion’s head, and four wings. Add to these the Chimera Sphinx of Egypt, Moloch, Astarte of the Syrians, and some figures of Isis with Bull’s horns and feathers of a bird on the head.

Sphinx - Greek Sphinx: Encyclopedia II - Sphinx - Similar creatures

Not all human-headed animals of antiquity are sphinxes. In ancient Assyria, for example, bas-reliefs of bulls with the crowned bearded heads of kings guarded the entrances to temples. In the classical Olympian mythology of Greece, all the deities had human form, though they could assume their animal natures as well. All the creatures of Greek myth that combine human and animal form are survivals of the pre-Olympian religion: centaurs, Typhon, Medusa, Lamia. In Hindu tradition, one of the Avatars of Vishnu was the Narasimha which means 'man-lion'. The Avatar had a human body and the h ...

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