The legend of a creature with the body and tail of a lion and the head of a man originated in ancient Egypt and spread to western Asia and the Mediterranean world. Greeks who had seen stone statues of the monster during visits to Egypt (where it was most famously depicted by a colossal sculpture at Giza) gave it the name “sphinx.” Around 1600 B.C., the sphinx became an important part of Greek lore, where its appearance departed from the Egyptian model, ultimately assuming a female head, a serpent’s tail, and curved wings.

In Greek mythology, the sphinx was sent from the gods to pose a tantalizing riddle. Perched on a high rock near the city of Thebes, the sphinx terrorized passers-by by demanding that they answer the following question: What is it that walks on four feet in the morning, on two feet at noon, and on three feet in the evening? The sphinx devoured each person who failed to answer the question correctly.

The Greek hero Oedipus finally solved the riddle of the sphinx. The answer was “man,” who crawls on all fours in childhood, walks on two feet in adulthood, and uses a cane in old age. Furious, the sphinx leapt from the rock to her death. Oedipus, meanwhile, was hailed as the liberator of Thebes and made its king.

PostScript: By the fifth century B.C., illustrations of Oedipus’ encounter with the sphinx appeared in Greek art. Some of the depictions suggested that the contest between Oedipus and the sphinx involved physical combat; Greek literature speaks only of the mental challenge.