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Source 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.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
29209
label
Sphinx
core
obj
dtoType
object
citationUrl
pageCount
6
Source metadata
id
29209
sourceUrl
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
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
Metal
statuettes (statues)
imageCount
6
pageCount
6
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
7.3
height
5
depth
1.8
dimensionsRaw
2 7/8 x 1 15/16 x 11/16 in. (7.3 x 5 x 1.8 cm)base: 5/8 x 1 15/16 x 1 3/16 in. (1.6 x 5 x 3 cm)
Source extras
cul
Greek
style
Archaic
med
bronze
creator_ids
6256
collection_ids
GRC
exhibition_ids
108
Page inventory
seq
1
type
photo
mediaId
49fef2bb08c1f390
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
2
type
photo
mediaId
322288bd7b5d0965
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
3
type
photo
mediaId
14967b31a38717bd
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
4
type
photo
mediaId
344afb50460e09af
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
5
type
photo
mediaId
853bfa22689fd4d5
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
6
type
photo
mediaId
46460351dd2729ff
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no