Limestone sphinx
Egyptian
Ptolemaic period (3rd – 1st century BCE)
Limestone
Probably purchased by Professor J. L. M. Curry in 1875
This sculpture represents the pharaoh as a hybrid creature, a male lion with a human head. Its small size and details of its headdress suggest a date in the Ptolemaic period. The fossiliferous limestone of which it is made has been severely worn, by water or wind-born sand.
