[3] In Egyptian mythology, in contrast, the sphinx is typically depicted as a man (an androsphinx (Ancient Greek: ἀνδρόσφιγξ)), and is seen as a benevolent representation of strength and ferocity, usually of a pharaoh.

[citation needed] However, depictions of the sphinx are generally associated with grand architectural structures, such as royal tombs or religious temples.

The word sphinx comes from the Greek Σφίγξ, associated by folk etymology with the verb σφίγγειν (sphíngēn), meaning "to squeeze", "to tighten up".

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 a contiguous part of the stony body of the Earth, shaped, but not cut away from its original source), than to the beast itself.

At the Great Sphinx site, a 1400 BC inscription on a stele belonging to the 18th dynasty pharaoh Thutmose IV lists the names of three aspects of the local sun deity of that period, Khepera–Rê–Atum.

Many pharaohs had their heads carved atop the guardian statues for their tombs to show their close relationship with the powerful solar deity Sekhmet, a lioness.

The theme was expanded to form great avenues of guardian sphinxes lining the approaches to tombs and temples as well as serving as details atop the posts of flights of stairs to very grand complexes.

Nine hundred sphinxes with ram heads (Criosphinxes), believed to represent Amon, were built in Thebes, where his cult was strongest.

This sphinx, which is depicted with a slight grin and dimples, is thought to be made in the image of the Roman emperor Claudius.

Such sphinxes were revived when the grottesche or "grotesque" decorations of the unearthed Domus Aurea of Nero were brought to light in late 15th-century Rome, and she was incorporated into the classical vocabulary of arabesque designs that spread throughout Europe in engravings during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Sphinxes were included in the decoration of the loggia of the Vatican Palace by the workshop of Raphael (1515–20), which updated the vocabulary of the Roman grottesche.

Sphinxes are a feature of the neoclassical interior decorations of Robert Adam and his followers, returning closer to the undressed style of the grottesche.

Avis thought that she could solve the prejudice that resulted from her gender and race through the Sphinx to show how she is an artist by tapping into the logic of Western Culture and visual recognition and classification.

[16] Wilde describes the sphinx as a sort of half-cat and half-woman that is connected to many mythological events, typically that of Egypt and Greece, as well as how the mysterious creature is surrounded by lust and death.

The writer James Thomson, similarly to Wilde, also utilizes the motif of the sphinx in his poem "The City of Dreadful Night".

[21] The poem revolves around an isolated and anxious man who runs throughout the city, his anxiety and fears taking on the personified image of a grandiose beast that has the makeup of a dragon and lion.

[22] Pliny the Elder mentions that Ethiopia produces plenty of sphinxes, with brown hair and breasts,[23] corroborated by 20th-century archeologists.

[24] Statius describes her as a winged monster, with pallid cheeks, eyes tainted with corruption, plumes clotted with gore and talons on livid hands.

[citation needed] In both cases, Oedipus can therefore be recognized as a "liminal" or threshold figure, helping effect the transition between the old religious practices, represented by the death of the Sphinx, and the rise of the new, Olympian gods.

The earliest artistic depictions of "sphinxes" from the South Asian subcontinent are to some extent influenced by Hellenistic art and writings.

It is found depicted in sculptural art in temples and palaces where it serves an apotropaic purpose, just as the "sphinxes" in other parts of the ancient world.

In Kanyakumari district, in the southernmost tip of the Indian subcontinent, during the night of Maha Shivaratri, devotees run 75 kilometres while visiting and worshiping at twelve Shiva temples.

The Sphinx motif present within the novel is established through the enigmatic creature of Murakami's design, Oshima: a mysterious, omnipotent being who has the protagonist grapple with the concept of a meaningless existence in turn of searching for authenticity by disconnecting from societal conventions of wealth and status.

Decadent themes of fate, destiny, tragedy, mystery, and identity present themselves in the Burmese adaptations of Greek myths, in this case, it is Oedipus and the Sphinx.