Note 610 — Chapter IX · THE SWORD IN KHITA-LAND, PALESTINE AND CANAAN; PHŒNICIA AND CARTHAGE; JEWRY, CYPRUS, TROY, AND ETRURIA.

The winged Sphinxes upon this patera with hawks’ heads are peculiarly Egyptian. The Sphinx, which may be older than the Pyramids, is a man-headed lion—the ‘union of force and intellect.’ Later types change the human head to that of an asp, a ram, and a hawk; and supply the latter with wings. The same is the case with the Sphinx of Troy and Assyria: it is mostly alate. The Grecian Sphinx changed the bearded human head to that of a woman; the Gyno-Sphinx in Egypt being later than the Andro-Sphinx. We find the female in the doorway of the Xanthus frieze and over the sarcophagus at Amathus (Cyprus, pp. 264–267). Those who would understand the peculiar beauty, not only of line but of expression, which the Egyptians threw into the face of the Sphinx have only to study the statue standing to the proper left of the main entrance to Shepheard’s Hotel, Cairo. It came, I believe, from the great Dromos of the Serapeum, the Apis-tombs of the marvellous Memphis cemetery.