Male and Female Sphinx

Syria: Tell Ta'yinat, Building 1, floor 2; Iron Age (Amuq Phase O), ca. 800 B.C. Basalt inlaid with white and green stone. Excavated by the Oriental Institute, 1936. "Sphinxes-imaginary creatures composed of a lion's body and a human head-are a motif that originated in Egypt and became common in the art of Western Asia beginning in the latter part of the second millennium B.C. This recumbent sphinx of local Syrian manufacture has an unusually vivacious character due to the position of the head, which is turned sideways with the chin slightly raised, not at the stiff right angle often found in ancient Near Eastern sculpture."