DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.748#0131
112 ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE.
question upon which the sculptures of Assos may throw
important light. Following the most thorough writer upon
the subject, Jaep,1 the belief has hitherto been common that
the sphinx was an independent creation of the Greek myth ;
still the Egypto-Phcenician character of the settlement of
Boeotian Thebes by Cadmus, and the first appearance of the
monster at that place, seems too plain an indication to be
easily explained away. The present relief certainly disproves
the assumption of Voss 2 that the Greek sphinx, like the Egyp-
tian, originally had no wings, — not receiving them until the
age of the great Attic dramatists, — which theory had already
been made extremely improbable by Gerhard.3 But the in-
fluence of Mesopotamia is known to have had a most direct
bearing upon the artistic conceptions and methods of the
Asiatic Greeks, and winged combinations of human heads
and animal bodies are common in the decorative sculpture
of Assyria.
The dimensions of this relief, the architectural symmetry of
the composition, and the existence of a similar relief for the rear
of the temple, prove it to have decorated the lintel above the
central inter-columniation of the front. The couching griffin,
or sphinx, appears from the reverse of all the earlier coins of
Assos to have been the emblem of the city. The representa-
tion of these animals above the entrance and upon both fronts
of the chief fane of Assos, in exactly the same conventional
attitude as upon the coins, and in a duplication which is the
fundamental principle of the coat-of-arms, makes the assump-
tion of, its heraldic significance more than probable. Curtius*
1 Die griechische Sphinx, eine Mythologiscke Abhandlitng. Von Dr. G. Jaep.
Gottingen, 1854.
2 Voss, Mythologische Briefs, vol. ii.
3 In the Abhandlungen der k'dnigl. Akademiedes Wissenschaflen zuBerlin. 1839.
4 Ueber Wappengebrauch und Wappenstil im grieckischen Alterthum, von
E. Curtius. Abhandlungen der ionigl. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin,
1874. Among the illustrations of this interesting paper there are several
question upon which the sculptures of Assos may throw
important light. Following the most thorough writer upon
the subject, Jaep,1 the belief has hitherto been common that
the sphinx was an independent creation of the Greek myth ;
still the Egypto-Phcenician character of the settlement of
Boeotian Thebes by Cadmus, and the first appearance of the
monster at that place, seems too plain an indication to be
easily explained away. The present relief certainly disproves
the assumption of Voss 2 that the Greek sphinx, like the Egyp-
tian, originally had no wings, — not receiving them until the
age of the great Attic dramatists, — which theory had already
been made extremely improbable by Gerhard.3 But the in-
fluence of Mesopotamia is known to have had a most direct
bearing upon the artistic conceptions and methods of the
Asiatic Greeks, and winged combinations of human heads
and animal bodies are common in the decorative sculpture
of Assyria.
The dimensions of this relief, the architectural symmetry of
the composition, and the existence of a similar relief for the rear
of the temple, prove it to have decorated the lintel above the
central inter-columniation of the front. The couching griffin,
or sphinx, appears from the reverse of all the earlier coins of
Assos to have been the emblem of the city. The representa-
tion of these animals above the entrance and upon both fronts
of the chief fane of Assos, in exactly the same conventional
attitude as upon the coins, and in a duplication which is the
fundamental principle of the coat-of-arms, makes the assump-
tion of, its heraldic significance more than probable. Curtius*
1 Die griechische Sphinx, eine Mythologiscke Abhandlitng. Von Dr. G. Jaep.
Gottingen, 1854.
2 Voss, Mythologische Briefs, vol. ii.
3 In the Abhandlungen der k'dnigl. Akademiedes Wissenschaflen zuBerlin. 1839.
4 Ueber Wappengebrauch und Wappenstil im grieckischen Alterthum, von
E. Curtius. Abhandlungen der ionigl. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin,
1874. Among the illustrations of this interesting paper there are several