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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1967.26
Title
Sphinx, part of an Incense Burner
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
statuette, sculpture
Date
c. 900-700 BCE
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Asia, Syria, Northwestern Syria
Period
Iron Age
Culture
Syrian
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/289152

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Steatite or chlorite

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norbert Schimmel
Accession Year
1967
Object Number
1967.26
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Commentary
This small sphinx with curling locks, facing right, was originally part of a sculptured openwork incense burner produced somewhere in Northern Syria or on the Levantine coast in the Iron Age. It may have been reworked as a separate object after the incense burner itself had been broken up. The sphinx of the female type seems to have originated in the Late Bronze Age Aegean and Anatolian worlds as a guardian figure which made its way to the Near East where it is abundant in many media during the Iron Age. Around 700 BCE the female sphinx returned to the Greek world where it had a long and illustrious career as a fearsome guardian of tombs and as the sphinx whose deadly riddle was solved by Oedipus.
(David Gordon Mitten, 2004)

Exhibition History

  • The Book and the Spade: An Exhibition of Biblical Art and Archaeology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 04/13/1975 - 05/04/1975
  • 32Q: 3620 University Study Gallery, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 02/13/2015

Verification Level

This record was created from historic documentation and may not have been reviewed by a curator; it may be inaccurate or incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu