The sphinx of Sparta was the end of a stele.
As the name suggests, the exhibit, made of Pentel marble, was found in Sparta, Attica. Dated 570 BC, it is an exhibit of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
Replica represents a reduced reproduction.
The Sphinx was a mixed figure with the body of a winged lion and the head of a woman.
Mother of the Sphinx was the demonic Echidna living in Hades, a being half man and half woman.
The man and brother of Echidna, who also existed in the underworld, was the giant monster Typhon (also Python) with 100 dragon heads and snake feet. In ancient Greece it was also regarded as a manifestation of the destructive forces of nature, such as volcanism.
Typhon and Echidna were also parents of the beasts Zerberos, Chimaera, Hydra and Ladon.
The Sphinx was in trouble in Thebes. She puzzled those passing by: "What has a voice, walks on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon and on three legs in the evening?" She devoured all those who could not solve her riddle.
The tragic hero Oedipus, who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother, solved this mystery. "The human being is meant. He crawls in his childhood, on his morning of life, on all fours; in his manhood he walks on two legs and in his old age, at the end of his life, he uses a stick as a third leg to help".
Thereupon the sphinx threw itself from a rock into an abyss.
