Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Sphinx Holding the Head of a Man
Middle Kingdom
Not on view
This object is not part of The Met collection. It was in the Museum for a special exhibition and has been returned to the lender.
The finished back of the sphinx shows that the beast never had a body but ended at the shoulders. Drill holes and a ledge on the underside suggest that this ivory attachment decorated the stern of a model boat. During the Osiris festival held at Abydos, the king was supposed to symbolically fight against the god’s enemies while Osiris’s image rested on a boat-shaped shrine. The model may have commemorated this part of the ritual.
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