Sphinx
The Sphinx (sometimes spelled Sphynx) is an ancient Egyptian statue of a male lion with a human head. Some sphinxes have wings. Most of them referred to simply as The Sphinx, represented a king or pharaoh in his aspect as a sun-god.
The most famous is the Great Sphinx of Giza, which is on the west bank of the Nile River. The Great Sphinx is not a true sphinx; it is the head of King Chephren with a crouching body. It was built in the Fourth Dynasty (2723 BCE-2563 BCE)
See also:
Avenue of Sphinxes at Karnak, Egypt
In Assyria, sphinxes guarded the entrances to temples.
In Greek mythology, there was one Sphinx. She was a demon of destruction and bad luck, a daughter of Typhon and Echidna. She was a winged lion with a woman's head; or she was a woman with the paws, claws and breasts of a lion, a snake tail and bird wings. She sat outside Thebes and asked all passersby a riddle: "Which creature in the morning goes on four feet, at noon on two, and in the evening upon three?" She strangled anyone who couldn't answer. Oedipus solved the riddle: man, crawls on all fours as a baby then walks on two feet as an adult, and walks with a cane in old age. The Sphinx then threw herself from her high rock and died.