Ancient Greek mythology Sphinx of Delphi on sky blue enamel pendant in sterling silver 925. Sphinx the mythical creature keeping the narrow passage from central Greece to Thives and Athene with the famous enigma about the human being that only Oedipus solved and passed to his native land Thives, is curved on a silver coin and covered with sky blue transparent enamel. This fine blue enamel silver pendant is hiding a secret, a mythical creature as a talisman against negative influence. A sphinx is a mythical creature with the head of a human, a falcon, a cat, or a sheep and the body of a lion with the wings of a falcon. In Greek tradition, the sphinx has the head of a woman, the haunches of a lion, and the wings of a bird. She is mythicized as treacherous and merciless, and will kill and eat those who cannot answer her riddle This deadly version of a sphinx appears in the myth and drama of Oedipus. Unlike the Greek sphinx, which was a woman, the Egyptian sphinx is typically shown as a man (an androsphinx (Ancient Greek: ανδρόσφιγξ)). In addition, the Egyptian sphinx was viewed as benevolent but having a ferocious strength similar to the malevolent Greek version. Both were thought of as guardians and often flank the entrances to temples. In European decorative art, the sphinx enjoyed a major revival during the Renaissance. Later, the sphinx image, initially very similar to the original Ancient Egyptian concept, was exported into many other cultures, albeit they're often interpreted quite differently due to translations of descriptions of the originals and through the evolution of the concept in relation to other 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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] The word sphinx comes from the Greek Σφίγξ, associated by folk etymology with the verb σφίγγω (sphíngō), meaning "to squeeze", "to tighten up". This name may be derived from the fact that lions 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 was present at the construction site, not harvested and brought from another location), than to the beast itself. Apollodorus describes the sphinx as having a woman's face, the body and tail of a lion and the wings of a bird. Pliny the Elder mentions that Ethiopia produces plenty of sphinxes, with brown hair and breasts, corroborated by 20th century archeologists. Statius describes her as a winged monster, with pallid cheeks, eyes tainted with corruption, plumes clotted with gore and talons on livid hands. Sometimes, the wings are specified to be those of an eagle, and the tail to be serpent-headed.[citation needed] There was a single sphinx in Greek mythology, a unique demon of destruction and bad luck. According to Hesiod, the Sphinx—here called "Phix" (Φῖκ’)—was a daughter of Orthrus and either the Chimera (probably) or Echidna (or perhaps even Ceto). According to Apollodorus and Lasus, she was a daughter of Echidna and Typhon. The sphinx was the emblem of the ancient city-state of Chios, and appeared on seals and the obverse side of coins from the 6th century BCE until the 3rd century CE. cultural traditions. Sphinx depictions are generally associated with architectural structures such as royal tombs or religious temples. The Sphinx is said to have guarded the entrance to the Greek city of Thebes, asking a riddle to travellers to allow them passage. The exact riddle asked by the Sphinx was not specified by early tellers of the myth, and was not standardized as the one given below until late in Greek history. It was 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), there was a second riddle: "There are two sisters: one gives birth to the other and she, in turn, gives birth to the first. Who are the two sisters?" The answer is "day and night" (both words—ἡμέρα and νύξ, respectively—are feminine in Ancient Greek). This second riddle is also found in a Gascon version of the myth and could be very ancient. Bested at last, the Sphinx then threw herself from her high rock and died; or, in some versions Oedipus killed her. An alternative version tells that she devoured herself. In both cases, Oedipus can therefore be recognized as a "liminal" or threshold figure, helping affect the transition between the old religious practices, represented by the death of the Sphinx, and the rise of the new, Olympian gods. Enamel, also called porcelain enamel, is a material made by fusing powdered glass to a substrate by firing. The enamel hardens to a smooth, durable vitreous coating. The word comes from the Latin vitreum, meaning "glass". Modern enamel is made by silicon or epoxy materials and hardens in a low temperature. Enamel can be used on metal, glass, ceramics, stone, or any material that will withstand the fusing temperature. In technical terms fired enamelware is an integrated layered composite of glass and another material (or more glass). The term "enamel" is most often restricted to work on metal, which is the subject of this article. Essentially the same technique used with other bases is known by different terms: on glass as enameled glass, or "painted glass", and on pottery it is called overglaze decoration, "overglaze enamels" or "enameling". The craft is called "enameling", the artists "enamellers" and the objects produced can be called "enamels". Enameling is an old and widely adopted technology, for most of its history mainly used in jewellery and decorative art. Since the 18th century, enamels have also been applied to many metal consumer objects, such as some cooking vessels, steel sinks, and cast-iron bathtubs. It has also been used on some appliances, such as dishwashers, laundry machines, and refrigerators, and on marker boards and signage. The term "enamel" has also sometimes been applied to industrial materials other than vitreous enamel, such as enamel paint and the polymers coating enameled wire; these actually are very different in materials science terms. Thanks for visiting my shop.