Potaissa Sphinx statue
This sculpture exhibits striking similarities to the renowned Naxos Sphinx, a masterpiece from 560 BC now housed in the Delphi Archaeological Museum.
[3] The statue was initially added to the private collection of Count József Kemény, a prominent archaeologist and historian who had led the excavation.
In a heartfelt letter to his friend Sándor Mike, Kemény lamented the loss of these invaluable artifacts, which had been carefully preserved as part of his life’s work.
The lack of information about the statue's fate has fueled numerous theories, with some suggesting it was smuggled abroad and now resides in a private collection, while others believe it may have been melted down or irretrievably lost during the chaos.
[2] In 2023, the inscription was finally deciphered, revealing a text in Greek letters that encoded a Hungarian-language phrase, further bolstering the artifact’s historical significance.
The inscription, written in an archaic verse form, was later confirmed as authentic by multiple experts and published in the journals such as the Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, Arkeonew or Heritage Daily.
Dr. Révész’s findings also suggested that Hungarian-speaking groups may have been present in the region of Roman Dacia as early as the 3rd century CE, predating the traditional timeline of Hungarian settlement in the Carpathian Basin.
Recognizing that the text employed a mirrored, right-to-left version of the archaic Greek alphabet, he reconstructed the sequence of letters to reveal a coherent pattern.
His analysis revealed the following text: "Íme, imádd: itt híres oroszlán" ("Behold, worship: here lies the sacred lion.")
[1][2] One of the few contemporary records of the statue was found in the archives of József Kemény, whose early career involved a document falsification scandal.
[2] If József Kemény had forged the statue, he would have needed to demonstrate an understanding of Greek epigraphy decades ahead of contemporary archaeologists and discover linguistic patterns in Hungarian over half a century before these theories emerged.
