Image Details

Sphinx
bronze, 7th century B.C.
From the town of Castulo, in the province of Jaén, comes this winged sphinx dating to Iberia’s Tartessian period. Like the hybrid Bicha de Balazote, sphinxes were thought to have the symbolic power to cross the threshold of the living world into the realm of the dead. Placed atop a pillar or a tomb, the creature could guide the deceased safely to the afterlife.