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"Sphinx, dog of Hades, whom are you guarding, watching over the dead?"-funerary inscription from Thessaly. The role of the sphinx as a guardian spirit was often a funerary one. Like the griffins that adorned earlier cauldrons of the Orientalizing period, sphinxes such as this one served as "watchdogs" over the precious contents of bronze vessels, which sometimes held the cremated remains of the deceased.

Page data

Page
4
Source index
0
Type
photo
Media ID
344afb50460e09af
Size
unknown

Document data

ID
29209
Core
obj
Type
object
DTO data
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    "contentType": "object",
    "stage": "normalized",
    "title": "Sphinx",
    "description": "\"Sphinx, dog of Hades, whom are you guarding, watching over the dead?\"-funerary inscription from Thessaly. The role of the sphinx as a guardian spirit was often a funerary one. Like the griffins that adorned earlier cauldrons of the Orientalizing period, sphinxes such as this one served as \"watchdogs\" over the precious contents of bronze vessels, which sometimes held the cremated remains of the deceased.",
    "provenance": "Lambros Collection [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Jean P. Lambros and Giovanni Dattari Sale, Paris, June 17-19, 1912, lot 214 [said to be from Lokri]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1912, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.",
    "date": "ca. 550 BCE (Archaic)",
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}

Context sent to Scholar

Document identity
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    "localId": "29209",
    "label": "Sphinx",
    "core": "obj",
    "dtoType": "object",
    "citationUrl": "https://purl.thewalters.org/art/54.770"
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Document source metadata
{
    "id": "29209",
    "sourceUrl": "https://purl.thewalters.org/art/54.770",
    "contentType": "object",
    "stage": "normalized",
    "title": "Sphinx",
    "description": "\"Sphinx, dog of Hades, whom are you guarding, watching over the dead?\"-funerary inscription from Thessaly. The role of the sphinx as a guardian spirit was often a funerary one. Like the griffins that adorned earlier cauldrons of the Orientalizing period, sphinxes such as this one served as \"watchdogs\" over the precious contents of bronze vessels, which sometimes held the cremated remains of the deceased.",
    "provenance": "Lambros Collection [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Jean P. Lambros and Giovanni Dattari Sale, Paris, June 17-19, 1912, lot 214 [said to be from Lokri]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1912, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.",
    "date": "ca. 550 BCE (Archaic)",
    "citationUrl": "https://purl.thewalters.org/art/54.770",
    "rightsUri": "CC0",
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Document source extras
{
    "cul": "Greek",
    "style": "Archaic",
    "med": "bronze",
    "creator_ids": [
        "6256"
    ],
    "collection_ids": [
        "GRC"
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    "exhibition_ids": [
        "108"
    ]
}
Page context
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