"an evolution-minded point of view. The beings show up in both Greek and Roman mythology, with various elements of ancient Egyptian society ebbing and flowing into those cultures in particular. Prominent examples in ancient Egyptian religion, featuring some of the earliest such hybrid beings, include the canine-like god of death known as Anubis and the lion-like Sphinx. Other instances of these types of characters include figures within both Chinese and Japanese mythology. The observation of interspecies friendships within the animal kingdom, as well as the bonds existing between humans and their pets, have been a source of the appeal in"
"Sphinx of Naxos The Sphinx of Naxos, also Sphinx of the Naxians, now in the Archaeological Museum of Delphi, is a colossal 2.22 meter tall marble statue of a sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a woman, the chest and wings composed of the impressive feathers of a prey bird turned upward, and the body of a lioness. The Sphinx stood on a 10 meters column that culminated in one of the first Ionic capitals, and was erected next to the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, the religious center of Ancient Greece, in 560 BCE. The first fragments"
"Greco-Bactrians and the Indo-Greeks. Sphinx of Naxos The Sphinx of Naxos, also Sphinx of the Naxians, now in the Archaeological Museum of Delphi, is a colossal 2.22 meter tall marble statue of a sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a woman, the chest and wings composed of the impressive feathers of a prey bird turned upward, and the body of a lioness. The Sphinx stood on a 10 meters column that culminated in one of the first Ionic capitals, and was erected next to the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, the religious center of Ancient Greece, in 560"
"column crowned by a sitted animal in the religious center of Delphi, may have been an inspiration for the pillars of Ashoka. Many similar columns crowned by sphinxes were discovered in ancient Greece, as in Sparta, Athens or Spata, and some . The Greek sphinx, a lion with the face of a human female, was considered as having ferocious strength, and was thought of as a guardian, often flanking the entrances to temples or royal tombs. Placing animals on top of a lotiform capital also reminds of Achaemenid columns. The animals, especially the horse on the Sarnath Lion Capital of"
"of unions of different elements into one symbol were originally used by the Ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, and Greeks. The image of the sphinx, found in Egypt and Babylon, depicted the body of a lion and the head of a human, while the harpies of Greek mythology showed bird-like human women. The prophet Ezekiel lived among the Jews who were exiled to Babylon in the 6th century BC. The creatures in his vision, from which the images of the tetramorph are derived, are reminiscent of ancient Assyria art. The animals associated with the Christian tetramorph originate in the Babylonian symbols of"
"were excavated from the sanctuary of the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, in 1860. The remainder was found in 1893. It was originally set up on a stele around 560 BC as an offering to the Temple of Apollo by Naxos, one of the richest Cycladic islands at the time. The overall height of the statue, the column and its base topped 12.5 meters. The Greek sphinx, a lion with the face of a human female, was considered as having ferocious strength, and was thought of as a guardian, often flanking the entrances to temples. Sphinxes depictions are generally associated"
"Manticore The manticore (Early Middle Persian ""Merthykhuwar""; Modern Persian ""Mardykhor"") is a Persian legendary creature similar to the Egyptian sphinx that proliferated in western European medieval art as well. It has the head of a human, body of a lion and a tail of venomous spines similar to porcupine quills, while other depictions have it with the tail of a scorpion. There are some accounts that the spines can be shot like arrows, thus making the manticore a lethal predator. It eats its victims whole, using its triple rows of teeth, and leaves no bones behind. The mantyger is a"
"the Sphinx, a monster with the head of a woman and the body of a winged lion, and the Nemean lion, killed by Heracles as his first labor. According to Hesiod, these two were the offspring of Echidna's son Orthrus and another ambiguous ""she"", read variously as the Chimera, Echidna herself, or even Ceto. In any case, the lyric poet Lasus of Hermione (6th century BC), has Echidna and Typhon as the parents of the Sphinx, while the playwright Euripides (5th century BC), has Echidna as her mother, without mentioning a father. While mentioning Cerberus and ""other monsters"" as being"
"Hippocampus (mythology) The hippocampus or hippocamp, also ""hippokampoi"" (plural: hippocampi or hippocamps; , from , ""horse"" and , ""sea monster""), often called a sea-horse in English, is a mythological creature shared by Phoenician, Etruscan, and Greek mythology, though its name has a Greek origin. The hippocampus has typically been depicted as having the upper body of a horse with the lower body of a fish. Coins minted at Tyre around the 4th century BC show the patron god Melqart riding on a winged hippocampus and accompanied by dolphins. Coins of the same period from Byblos show a hippocampus diving under"
"said in late lore that Hera or Ares sent the Sphinx from her Aethiopian homeland (the Greeks always remembered the foreign origin of the Sphinx) to Thebes in Greece where she asked all passersby the most famous riddle in history: ""Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?"" She strangled and devoured anyone who could not answer. Oedipus solved the riddle by answering: ""Man—who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then uses a walking stick in old age"". By some accounts (but much more rarely),"
"The Phoenix II. The Hoopoe III. The Siren IV. The Horsefly V. The Onocentaur Fragment B: I. The Hydra II. The Goat III. The Wild Ass IV. The Monkey V. The Heron VI. The Coot VII. The Panther VIII. The Whale IX. The Partridge X. The Onocentaur XI. The Weasel XII. The Asp XIII. The Turtle Dove XIV. The Deer XV. The Salamander XVI. The Kite XVII. The Boar XVIII. The Night Heron XIX. The Elephant Latin versions of the Physiologus often contained a myriad of entries that ranged from exotic quadrupeds to mythical beasts to birds, trees and stones."
"made her way to Egypt. Queen Moo's name was drawn from the Mayan word for macaw, based on the bird imagery in the Mayan representations of her figure. Le Plongeon took this as further evidence that Moo and Isis were the same figure, as Isis is often represented as a winged figure. Chacmool means jaguar paw and Plongeon believed the great cat was Prince Coh's symbol. Plongeon claimed that the Egyptian Sphinx, with its cat body and human head, was built by Queen Moo to honor her dead husband. Augustus Le Plongeon found a jade pendant during his excavations of"
"the head of a donkey, it is possible the donkey was the inspiration for the Set animal. Others have speculated that it is a purely fantastic or composite animal, which never existed in nature; this was the opinion of Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge. Because the name ""sha"" is not as familiar as that of Set, and has no independent mythology associated with it, the animal is commonly referred to as ""Set"" or ""Set animal"" or the ""Typhonian animal"", so-called because the Greeks equated Set or Sutekh with the monster Typhon. Set animal In ancient Egyptian art, the Set animal,"
"Sphinx (Marc Quinn sculpture) In 2006, Sphinx, a sculpture of the British fashion model Kate Moss in a complicated yoga position was unveiled by the controversial British sculptor Marc Quinn. The life-size sculpture is made of cast bronze, with a white-painted finish, and shows Moss wearing a leotard with her feet and hands behind her head. The pose itself was modelled by a more experienced woman yoga practitioner, though the body, hands, and feet are based on Moss' exact measurements and earlier lifecastings. Quinn's representation of Moss is meant to show ""a mirror of ourselves, a knotted Venus of our"
"might be the Set animal comes from a tomb dating to the Amratian culture (""Naqada I"") of prehistoric Egypt (3790 BC–3500 BC), though this identification is uncertain. If these are ruled out, then the earliest Set animal appears on a ceremonial macehead of Scorpion II, a ruler of the Naqada III phase. The head and the forked tail of the Set animal are clearly present. The next phase of the myth begins when the adult Horus challenges Set for the throne of Egypt. The contest between them is often violent but is also described as a legal judgment before the"
"or his artist and engraver, pictured it as a curly-haired monster with a grassy dog collar. Athanasius Kircher (who never visited Egypt) depicted the Sphinx as a Roman statue, reflecting his ability to conceptualize (""Turris Babel"", 1679). Johannes Helferich's (1579) Sphinx is a pinched-face, round-breasted woman with a straight haired wig; the only edge over Thévet is that the hair suggests the flaring lappets of the headdress. George Sandys stated that the Sphinx was a harlot; Balthasar de Monconys interpreted the headdress as a kind of hairnet, while François de La Boullaye-Le Gouz's Sphinx had a rounded hairdo with bulky"
"H. Wilkinson, the first known use of the Set animal was upon the Scorpion Macehead of Scorpion II of Naqada III. It was soon thereafter portrayed mounted upon the serekhs of Seth-Peribsen and Khasekhemwy. According to some scientists, the Set animal hieroglyph does not actually represent a living animal. It’s currently not possible to determine from what living creature the hieroglyph derived. Some Egyptian texts suggest that Set took the form of a dangerous animal, such as a bull or crocodile. The sha is usually depicted as a slender canid, resembling a greyhound or a jackal, with three distinguishing features:"
"age."" The British Museum commissioned Marc Quinn in 2008 to make a life-size sculpture of the model Kate Moss, made entirely of cast gold. The resulting work, also in the yoga position of ""Sphinx"" and modeled from ""Sphinx"", was named ""Siren"". It was placed in a show in the museum's Nereid Gallery near the statue of the bathing Aphrodite. While some say the statue is the largest gold sculpture created since the ancient Egyptian era the claim cannot be verified. Sphinx (Marc Quinn sculpture) In 2006, Sphinx, a sculpture of the British fashion model Kate Moss in a complicated yoga"
"has become an emblem of Egypt, frequently appearing on its stamps, coins, and official documents. In the Bronze Age, the Hellenes had trade and cultural contacts with Egypt. Before the time that Alexander the Great occupied Egypt, the Greek name, ""sphinx"", was already applied to these statues. The historians and geographers of Greece wrote extensively about Egyptian culture. Herodotus called the ram-headed sphinxes Criosphinxes and called the hawk-headed ones Hieracosphinxes. In Greek mythology, a sphinx is represented as a monster with a head of a woman, the body of a lioness, the wings of an eagle, and a serpent-headed tail."
"The word ""sphinx"" comes from the Greek Σφίγξ, apparently from the verb σφίγγω (""sphíngō""), meaning ""to squeeze"", ""to tighten up"". This name may be derived from the fact that, in a pride of lions, the hunters are the lionesses, and kill their prey by strangulation, biting the throat of prey and holding them down until they die. However, the historian Susan Wise Bauer suggests that the word ""sphinx"" was instead a Greek corruption of the Egyptian name ""shesepankh"", which meant ""living image"", and referred rather to the ""statue"" of the sphinx, which was carved out of ""living rock"" (rock that"
"Ancient Rome also bred them. The use of their valuable hides began in the Middle Ages. The unicorn myth may have originated from sightings of a scimitar oryx with a broken horn. The scimitar oryx was the emblem of the ancient Egyptian Oryx nome and today is the animal symbol of the Sahara Conservation Fund. The scimitar oryx is a member of the genus ""Oryx"" and family Bovidae. The German naturalist Lorenz Oken first described it in 1816, naming it ""Oryx algazel"". The nomenclature has undergone various changes since then, with the introduction of names like ""Oryx tao"", ""O. leucoryx"","
"that period. There are altogether seven remaining capitals, five with lions, one with an elephant and one with a zebu bull. One of them, the four lions of Sarnath, has become the State Emblem of India. The animal capitals are composed of a lotiform base, with an abacus decorated with floral, symbolic or animal designs, topped by the realistic depiction of an animal, thought to each represent a traditional direction in India. Various foreign influences have been described in the design of these capitals. Greek columns of the 6th century BCE such as the Sphinx of Naxos, a 12.5m Ionic"
"Griffin The griffin, griffon, or gryphon (Greek: γρύφων, ""grýphōn"", or γρύπων, ""grýpōn"", early form ""γρύψ"", ""grýps""; ) is a legendary creature with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion; the head and wings of an eagle; and sometimes an eagle's talons as its front feet. Because the lion was traditionally considered the king of the beasts and the eagle the king of birds by the Middle Ages the griffin was thought to be an especially powerful and majestic creature. Since classical antiquity, Griffins were known for guarding treasure and priceless possessions. In Greek and Roman texts, griffins and"
"Yale (mythical creature) The yale or centicore (Latin: ""eale"") is a mythical beast found in European mythology and heraldry. Most descriptions make it an antelope- or goat-like four-legged creature with the tusks of a boar and large horns that it can swivel in any direction. The name might be derived from Hebrew יָעֵל (""yael""), meaning ""Ibex"". The yale was first written about by Pliny the Elder in Book VIII of his ""Natural History"": he describes the ""eale"" as a creature found in Aethiopia ""the size of a hippopotamus, with an elephant's tail, of a black or tawny colour, with the"
"Sphinx is one of the world's largest and oldest statues, yet basic facts about it such as the real-life model for the face, when and why it was built, and by whom, are debated. These questions have collectively earned the title ""Riddle of the Sphinx"", a nod to its Greek namesake, although this phrase should not be confused with the original Greek legend. The Great Sphinx is commonly accepted by Egyptologists to represent the likeness of King Khafra (also known by the Hellenised version of his name, ""Chephren"") who is often credited as the builder as well. This would place"
"or a fennec fox. The animal has a curved snout, long rectangular ears, a thin forked tail and canine body, with sprouted fur tufts in an inverted arrow shape; sometimes, Set is depicted as a human with the distinctive head. Some early Egyptologists proposed that it was a stylised representation of the giraffe, owing to the large flat-topped ""horns"" which correspond to a giraffe's ossicones. The Egyptians themselves, however, made a distinction between the giraffe and the Set animal. During the Late Period, Set is depicted as a donkey or as having a donkey's head. The earliest representations of what"
"Aegyptopithecus Aegyptopithecus (""Egyptian ape"", from Greek ""Αίγυπτος"" ""Egypt"" and ""πίθηκος"" ""ape"") is an early fossil catarrhine that predates the divergence between hominoids (apes) and cercopithecids (Old World monkeys). It is known from a single species, Aegyptopithecus zeuxis, which lived around 30 million years ago in the early part of the Oligocene epoch. It likely resembled modern-day New World monkeys, and was about the same size as a modern howler monkey, which is about long. ""Aegyptopithecus"" fossils have been found in the Jebel Qatrani Formation of modern-day Egypt. ""Aegyptopithecus"" is believed to be a stem-catarrhine, a crucial link between Eocene and"
"Sphinx of Memphis The Sphinx of Memphis is a stone sphinx located near the remains of Memphis, Egypt. The carving was believed to take place between 1700 and 1400 BC, which was during the 18th dynasty. It is unknown which pharaoh is being honored and there are no inscriptions to supply information. The facial features imply that the Sphinx is honoring Hatshepsut or Amenhotep II or Amenhotep III. The Alabaster Sphinx was discovered in 1912 when an affiliate from the British School in America spotted a uniquely carved object jutting out of a sand hill. It was so far in"
"with the body of a lion and the head of a human being is present in the traditions, mythology and art of South and Southeast Asia. Variously known as ""purushamriga"" (Sanskrit, ""man-beast""), ""purushamirugam"" (Tamil, ""man-beast""), ""naravirala"" (Sanskrit, ""man-cat"") in India, or as ""nara-simha"" (Sanskrit, ""man-lion"") in Sri Lanka, ""manusiha"" or ""manuthiha"" (Pali, ""man-lion"") in Myanmar, and ""norasingh"" (from Pali, ""man-lion"", a variation of the Sanskrit ""nara-simha"") or ""thep norasingh"" (""man-lion deity""), or ""nora nair"" in Thailand. In contrast to the sphinxes in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Greece, of which the traditions largely have been lost due to the discontinuity of the"
"It was not separated from Centaurus until Hipparchus of Bithynia named it ""Therion"" (meaning beast) in the 2nd century BC. No particular animal was associated with it until the Latin translation of Ptolemy's work identified it with the wolf. The Greek constellation is probably based on the Babylonian figure known as the Mad Dog (UR.IDIM). This was a strange hybrid creature that combined the head and torso of a man with the legs and tail of a lion (the cuneiform sign 'UR' simply refers to a large carnivore; lions, wolves and dogs are all included). It is often found in"
"the prophecy that the king had sought to avoid by exposing Oedipus at birth is fulfilled. Before arriving at Thebes, Oedipus encounters the Sphinx, a legendary beast with the head and breast of a woman, the body of a lioness, and the wings of an eagle. The Sphinx was sent to the road approaching Thebes as a punishment from the gods, and would strangle any traveler who failed to answer a certain riddle. The precise riddle asked by the Sphinx varied in early traditions, and is not stated in ""Oedipus Rex"", as the event precedes the play; but the most"
"a geologist and associate professor of natural science at the College of General Studies at Boston University, as well as by John Anthony West, an author and alternative Egyptologist. Colin Reader, a British geologist, studied the erosion patterns and noticed that they are found predominantly on the western enclosure wall and not on the Sphinx itself. He proposed the rainfall water runoff hypothesis, which also recognizes climate change transitions in the area. Author Robert K. G. Temple proposes that the Sphinx was originally a statue of the Jackal-Dog Anubis, the God of the Necropolis, and that its face was recarved"
"land. The echidnas are named after Echidna, a creature from Greek mythology who was half-woman, half-snake, as the animal was perceived to have qualities of both mammals and reptiles. Echidnas are medium-sized, solitary mammals covered with coarse hair and spines. Superficially, they resemble the anteaters of South America and other spiny mammals such as hedgehogs and porcupines. They are usually black or brown in colour. There have been several reports of albino echidnas, their eyes pink and their spines white. They have elongated and slender snouts that function as both mouth and nose. Like the platypus, they are equipped with"