the.com/sphinx
a stone bouncer guarding tombs with riddles instead of velvet ropes
means A mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head, famous in Egyptian monuments and in the Greek legend of a riddle-posing monster — and, by extension, a person who is mysteriously silent or inscrutable.
from From Greek 'Sphinx,' the riddling monster of the Oedipus myth, traditionally linked to the verb 'sphingein,' to bind or squeeze tight — fitting for a beast that strangled those who failed her riddle, though that connection may itself be a Greek folk etymology. The Greeks then applied the name to the older Egyptian guardian statues, and the word has crouched in English since at least the 16th century, lending its name to anyone wearing an unreadable face.
- missing nose
- Great Sphinx lost its nose centuries ago, cause disputed
- riddle penalty
- Greek Sphinx ate travelers who answered wrong
- single block
- Giza's Sphinx carved from one limestone outcrop
- cat species
- hairless Sphynx breed spelled differently, equally judgmental
- buried body
- sand hid most of it for millennia
great sphinx of giza — limestone statue near cairo, egypt, built around 2500 bce with pharaoh khafre's face