This attachment depicts a male sphinx with an elongated, slender body and very long legs atop a supporting device. The face is extraordinarily detailed, with heavily rimmed eyes under prominent brows, and a long, thin, sharp nose with deep creases alongside the nostrils that extend onto the cheeks. His mouth, which is broad and full and has indentations at both sides, and ears that are placed high on the sides of his head, create an expression not only of age and ferocity but also of fatigue or worry. The sphinx wears an unusual headdress that, from the front, looks very much like the tripartite wig found on similar statuettes.^[1] However, a tail of gathered fabric on his upper back and the vertical lines on his forehead indicate that he wears a version of the striped nemes head cloth with softer, less angular sides that curve around the back of his ears and descend as lappets. No uraeus is shown on his forehead. His straight false beard with a blunt lower edge—a type usually worn by kings—is divided horizontally into five sections.^[2]1

A rough area on the top of the head approximately in the shape of a “D” shows where the headdress was once attached (fig. 1). A small bit of metal on the back of the head appears to be a point of its attachment. Although representations of these sphinxes depict them wearing an atef crown or the atef with horns (see fig. 2), Günther Roeder suggested that the headdress on the Chicago statuette was in the form of a rearing uraeus, helping to explain the omission of that element that is otherwise included on some of the other copper alloy sphinxes.^[3]2

The sphinx has prominent shoulder blades that are shown as rounded humps. The upper portions of the front legs are covered by an abstract representation of a lion’s shaggy mane, but here, like on the rest of the body, there is no surface detail.^[4] The backs of his front legs are flat; no attempt was made to indicate the separation of the limbs. His rear haunches are high and rounded. The fronts of his rear legs are fully detailed with the curves of the muscles. His tail is lost. Based on the tails of other representations of the sphinx, it would possibly have been thin and lifted in a high curve over the animal’s back.3

Two rearing, protective serpents with thin bodies lie upon the base. Each of the snake’s rearing heads is supported by a section of metal that attaches the serpentine head to the forelegs of the sphinx. The eyes and mouth of each serpent are clearly rendered, and both bodies are marked with horizontal lines. Their hoods are spread in a gesture of alertness and threat to potential enemies. A deep line runs down the middle of the top of the base.4

Function and Symbolism

The sphinx and base are attached to a square, copper alloy rod that would have allowed them to be mounted on the bow of a sacred boat or “barque” (see fig. 1). At Thebes, these figurines are shown adorning the boats of the gods Amun, Mut, Khonsu, and the king, where they served as protective guardians. The oblique piece of metal that acted as a brace for the base of this sphinx is also shown on representations of these objects. Two short, round streamers hang from the back of the rod. The sphinx, base, and mounting rod are solid cast.5

The straight false beard, which is found on most representations of the king, and the combination of a man’s face with the body of a lion, indicate that the statuette represents the king as a sphinx, symbolizing his power and strength. Images of the king as a sphinx date to Dynasty 4—the largest and most famous example being the Great Sphinx at Giza—and became very popular in the Middle Kingdom.^[5] In the New Kingdom, the king as a sphinx was used as a decorative motif on chariots and other military-related objects.^[6] However, the motif also appears on small objects such as scarabs. There were different forms of sphinxes, such as the criosphinx (ram-headed lion) and heliosphinx (falcon-headed lion).6

Although Egyptian religious imagery often mixed elements of an animal with those of a human, the sphinx is one of the few examples where the body is that of an animal and the head is human.7

A separate cult of the sphinx god Tutu is known from Dynasty 26 into the Roman period.^[7] He bore the epithets Great of Strength, Fierce of Face, and the One Who Drives Away Enemies. He was the subject of a popular cult as a god Who Comes to One Calling Him.^[8] The connection between the earlier images of the sphinx on the standard and the later images of Tutu are based on the shared iconography of the sphinx wearing an atef crown and trampling serpents; however, the figurines on the sacred boat are not referred to as Tutu.8

Additional Views of Cat. 23

Date

Because sphinxes were intended to represent the king, the date of the Chicago statuette is based on the similarity of its facial features to some representations of kings of Dynasties 21 and 22.^[9] This was a period in which copper alloy figurines, like this one, were of very high quality, before they were mass-produced in the Late Period.^[10]9

For more on copper alloy statuettes, see About Copper Alloy Statuettes.10

Provenance

The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in 1894.11

Publication History

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 106, 107 (ill.).12

Günther Roeder, Ägyptische Bronzefiguren (Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1956), 368, fig. 516; 390, 421, 449–450.13

Roberta Casagrande-Kim, ed., When the Greeks Ruled Egypt: From Alexander the Great to Cleopatra, with contributions by Mary C. Greuel et al., exh. cat. (New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 2014), 104, no. 126.14