On some of the early monuments of Attica there stood a sphinx. The instance figured (44) is from an early tomb at Spata, near Athens[137]. The monster is archaic in form: her hair falls in long formal curls, her breast is covered with
FIG. 43 A. ANTHEMION.
feathers: on her head is a round crown. The history of the sphinx has been traced by Milchhoefer[138] and other writers. Its origin is certainly to be sought in Egypt, in which country sphinxes were set up in lines as guardians of the temples. The Egyptian sphinx is unwinged and male, as the beard which it commonly wears clearly shows; but when the people of Asia Minor and Syria imitated the form, they added wings. The significance of the monster was in Egypt quite vague; and it was probably even more vague in Asia. Thus when the Greeks adopted the strange form, it cannot have brought with it much meaning. They had to give it a meaning of their own. In fact, it was quite characteristic in the Greeks that they
FIG. 43 B. ANTHEMION.
FIG. 44. SPHINX OF SPATA.
