Statuette of a Sphinx from a Barque Standard
Description
The creature here combines a ferocious lion’s body with a king’s head to form a divine guardian called a sphinx. Small metal sphinxes like this one were affixed to barques (boats) that carried the cult statues of gods and goddesses when they were brought out of their temples during religious festivals. Here, two rearing cobras flank the sphinx’s paws to help it ward off threats to the deity whose statue was set in a shrine at the center of the barque, shielded from view.
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
Bronze/copper-alloy sphinx-like statuette shown in side view, mounted as if part of a barque standard, with the paws placed on a rectangular frame or bar.
The image shows a dark green patinated metal statuette representing a sphinx-like figure. The head has a stylized headdress/wig-like form and a human-like profile face. The body is elongated with a prominent torso and a long, muscular arm/foreleg posture. One foreleg appears to rest on a horizontal rectangular bar or framework; beneath and around the legs there is a strut-like element forming part of the barque-standard mounting. The back/side is not fully visible, but the figure is clearly sculptural in the round. No readable inscriptions, cartouches, or text are visible on the figure or base, and no clear hieroglyphs are present in the provided view. The overall surface color and mottled green/black sheen are consistent with copper-alloy corrosion/patina.
Cross-references (1)
- ARTIC-id 130025 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian).
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.