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Headless recumbent sphinx, Manisa 311, right side. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College) -
Headless recumbent sphinx, Manisa 311, left side. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Marble Sculpture of a Headless Recumbent Sphinx
Report 2: Sculpture from Sardis: The Finds through 1975
(1978)
Cat. 41
- Date
- Late 6th or 5th C. BC?, Late Lydian (Persian)
- Museum
- Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, 311
- Museum Inventory No.
- 311
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- Manisa 311
- Material
- Marble, Stone
- Object Type
- Sculpture
- Sculpture Type
- Animal
- Site
- Sardis?
- Findspot
- "Salihli." As Salihli has no Lydian antiquities of its own, this provenance usually indicates Sardis or vicinity, Apr. 14, 1946.
- Description
- A straight rectangular cut was made to seat the neck, head, and part of the wing (rectangle: W. 0.19, L. 0.15; dowel hole: diam. 0.035, D. 0.035). Judging from the cutting, the head may have been slightly turned to the proper r. The tail is slung up on the back and disappears at the l. haunch. The horizontal wings are broken across the back. Semicircular breast feathers are joined at the sides by long (up to 0.25), straight wing feathers which slant upward slightly. There are large claws on the l. rear paw, which is folded under the haunch.
- Condition
Marble
Surface worn and partly blackened by weathering.
- Dimensions
- P.H. 0.44; L. 0.90; H. of base 0.10
- Comments
- See Also
- Bibliography
- For this type, which is of Near Eastern derivation, see Herrmann, Urartu und Griechenland, 97-99, n.69, figs. 19-20. The archaic Greek sphinxes of the Assos frieze, Caskey, Catalogue Sculpture Boston MFA, 12, no. 8, are fairly close in proportions. For earlier Lydian example cf. Cat. 239 (Figs. 416-418).
- Author
- GMAH