Ancient Greek mythology Sphinx of Delphi on sky buying blue enamel pendant in sterling silver 925, a talisman against negative influence.

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 buying 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" (.