TOEFL Experts Reading Practice 31
The Sphinx, a mythical creature with a lion’s body and human head, has become inextricably linked with ancient Egyptian culture, undoubtedly because of the fame of the Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt. However, in reality, sphinx-like creatures were prominent in many ancient cultures worldwide. The sphinx’s ubiquity and the relative constancy of its meaning and legend in many cultures points to a human commonality whose spread extends far beyond Giza and the Sahara Desert.
The Egyptian sphinx sported a male human head and was apparently considered a benevolent god, although one that possessed great strength. As in many other cultures, sphinxes often guarded temple entrances. The famous Great Sphinx is generally not thought to be the oldest such Egyptian statue; many, but not all, scholars believe that one depicting Queen Hetepheres II, built in approximately 2600 BCE, is probably the oldest in Egypt. However, further north in present-day Turkey, Neolithic sphinx-like figures dating to 9500 BCE have been found.
Like its Egyptian cousin, the Greek sphinx guarded temple entrances and had the body of a lion. However, Greek sphinxes had a female head and often wings. Furthermore, Greek sphinxes were far more malevolent. A prominent Greek myth tells of the Sphinx guarding Thebes; it would pose a riddle to passersby: “What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three at night?" It then killed the hapless travelers, who all failed to solve it. Finally, according to the myth, Oedipus, immortalized in Sophocles’s ancient Greek play Oedipus Rex, solved the riddle: “Man. As an infant, he crawls on all fours; as an adult, he walks on two legs and in old age, he uses a ‘walking’ stick.” The Sphinx then killed itself. This myth of this Sphinx still resonates in modern cultures; the French playwright Jean Cocteau reworked Oedipus Rex as The Infernal Machine in the twentieth century.
Sphinxes as gods are far from limited to Greece and the Middle East. On the contrary, such figures have been depicted in myths and legends across the breadth of Asia. Creatures with human heads and the haunches of lions have particular names in the Sanskrit, Tamil, Pali, and Thai languages. They are known and respected throughout the Indian subcontinent, as well as in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. To this day, in parts of India, sphinxes guard temples and are worshiped in rituals. Even farther afield, there is a similar creature in the Philippines that is part man and part eagle. Interestingly enough, local lore has it that this sphinx also asks travelers a riddle and kills those who cannot answer it, much as in Thebes.
India is not the only place where interest in sphinxes survived antiquity. In Europe, an artistic fascination with sphinxes began around 1500 and continued into the 1700s. In Freemasonry, a guild organization that began in medieval times and still exists today, sphinxes as guardians of secrecy are often sculpted in front of temples and adorn several Masonic badges.
While it is thus indisputable that the sphinx has had symbolic importance from prehistory to the present, uncertainty has arisen concerning the age of the most famous sphinx of all, the Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt. Most scholars still subscribe to the conventional view that the Great Sphinx was built by the pharaoh Khafra around 2500 BCE. However, some point to stylistic features to argue that it must be one to two hundred years older. More radically, one theory suggests that the Great Sphinx is several thousand years older than generally thought. This hypothesis claims that the weathering pattern of the Great Sphinx indicates that extensive rainfall was the agent. As it is accepted that such rainfall ceased to be part of the Egyptian climate around 4000 BCE, this would mean that the Great Sphinx existed at least hundreds of years before that. While the majority opinion, with some scientific justification, argues that the damage to the stone could have been caused by wind erosion and that no other evidence of ancient Egyptians undertaking such constructions before 5000 BCE has surfaced, the rival theories have had enough credence to introduce uncertainty into the discussion. To this day, the exact age of the Great Sphinx remains a secret that it guards.
The Sphinx, a mythical creature with a lion’s body and human head, has become inextricably linked with ancient Egyptian culture, undoubtedly because of the fame of the Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt. However, in reality, sphinx-like creatures were prominent in many ancient cultures worldwide. The sphinx’s ubiquity and the relative constancy of its meaning and legend in many cultures points to a human commonality whose spread extends far beyond Giza and the Sahara Desert.
The Egyptian sphinx sported a male human head and was apparently considered a benevolent god, although one that possessed great strength. As in many other cultures, sphinxes often guarded temple entrances. The famous Great Sphinx is generally not thought to be the oldest such Egyptian statue; many, but not all, scholars believe that one depicting Queen Hetepheres II, built in approximately 2600 BCE, is probably the oldest in Egypt. However, further north in present-day Turkey, Neolithic sphinx-like figures dating to 9500 BCE have been found.
Like its Egyptian cousin, the Greek sphinx guarded temple entrances and had the body of a lion. However, Greek sphinxes had a female head and often wings. Furthermore, Greek sphinxes were far more malevolent. A prominent Greek myth tells of the Sphinx guarding Thebes; it would pose a riddle to passersby: “What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three at night?" It then killed the hapless travelers, who all failed to solve it. Finally, according to the myth, Oedipus, immortalized in Sophocles’s ancient Greek play Oedipus Rex, solved the riddle: “Man. As an infant, he crawls on all fours; as an adult, he walks on two legs and in old age, he uses a ‘walking’ stick.” The Sphinx then killed itself. This myth of this Sphinx still resonates in modern cultures; the French playwright Jean Cocteau reworked Oedipus Rex as The Infernal Machine in the twentieth century.
Sphinxes as gods are far from limited to Greece and the Middle East. On the contrary, such figures have been depicted in myths and legends across the breadth of Asia. Creatures with human heads and the haunches of lions have particular names in the Sanskrit, Tamil, Pali, and Thai languages. They are known and respected throughout the Indian subcontinent, as well as in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. To this day, in parts of India, sphinxes guard temples and are worshiped in rituals. Even farther afield, there is a similar creature in the Philippines that is part man and part eagle. Interestingly enough, local lore has it that this sphinx also asks travelers a riddle and kills those who cannot answer it, much as in Thebes.
India is not the only place where interest in sphinxes survived antiquity. In Europe, an artistic fascination with sphinxes began around 1500 and continued into the 1700s. In Freemasonry, a guild organization that began in medieval times and still exists today, sphinxes as guardians of secrecy are often sculpted in front of temples and adorn several Masonic badges.
While it is thus indisputable that the sphinx has had symbolic importance from prehistory to the present, uncertainty has arisen concerning the age of the most famous sphinx of all, the Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt. Most scholars still subscribe to the conventional view that the Great Sphinx was built by the pharaoh Khafra around 2500 BCE. However, some point to stylistic features to argue that it must be one to two hundred years older. More radically, one theory suggests that the Great Sphinx is several thousand years older than generally thought. This hypothesis claims that the weathering pattern of the Great Sphinx indicates that extensive rainfall was the agent. As it is accepted that such rainfall ceased to be part of the Egyptian climate around 4000 BCE, this would mean that the Great Sphinx existed at least hundreds of years before that. While the majority opinion, with some scientific justification, argues that the damage to the stone could have been caused by wind erosion and that no other evidence of ancient Egyptians undertaking such constructions before 5000 BCE has surfaced, the rival theories have had enough credence to introduce uncertainty into the discussion. To this day, the exact age of the Great Sphinx remains a secret that it guards.
- The mythical sphinx, while inevitably imagined as the Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt, is a worldwide phenomenon of lasting importance.