Statue of a female sphinx in grey tuff, from Pompeii (5)
Image by diffendale
Traces of stucco are preserved in some areas.
Found in 1903 flanking the doorway of the Roman villa in the Fondo Prisco (approximately here. For the villa, see Della Corte, "Villa rustica esplorata dal sig. cav. Carlo Rossi Filangieri nel fondo di Antonio Prisco, in contrada Civita-Giuliana," Notizie degli scavi di antichità 18 (1921), 415-423), not far outside the Porta Vesuvio. It probably originally guarded a tomb, along with a second sphinx, of which only a head is preserved.
2nd-1st c. BCE
Soprintendenza Pompei (Antiquarium di Boscoreale), inv. 25896
Photographed on display in the exhibition "Il Nilo a Pompeii: visioni d’Egitto nel mondo romano" (The Nile at Pompeii: visions of Egypt in the Roman world) at the Museo Egizio in Torino, Piemonte, Italy, March 5 to September 4 (extended to October 2), 2016.
