Sphinx of Taharqo

He was a Nubian king, who was one of the 25th Egyptian Dynasty (about 747–656 BC) rulers of the Kingdom of Kush.

The hieroglyphs on the statue explain that it is a portrait of the great King Taharqo, the fourth pharaoh to rule over the combined kingdoms of Kush and Ancient Egypt during the Third Intermediate Period.

[2] The statue is a sphinx, representing here the immense power of the Egyptian and Kushite pharaoh Taharqo, whose face is shown.

The headdress bears two uraei, the Nubian symbol of kingship, and Taharqo's name appears in a cartouche on the sphinx's chest.

"[5] The statue was excavated at Temple T, in the area east of the south-eastern part of the Temple of Amun at Kawa (now Gematon), in Nubia (now Sudan), during excavations there by the Archaeological Mission of the University of Oxford during the 1930s.

Pharaoh Taharqa of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt depicted as a sphinx , now exhibited at the British Museum . Taharqa was a recurring enemy of Esarhaddon , defeating his planned invasion of Egypt in 673 BC and in turn being defeated by Esarhaddon in 671 BC.