Akhenaten Sphinx

Among the loveliest relics of the Amarna Period are a handful of carved slabs, now scattered across the world (from the Kestner Museum in Hanover to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Brooklyn Museum of New York) showing Akhenaten as a human-headed sphinx. He crouches in the classic pose, forepaws extended, muscles taut beneath the carved stone, while the Aten’s life-giving rays descend upon him. In several examples, the king offers vases of fragrant liquid (the traditional libation of kingship) towards the solar disc.

It is a scene at once ancient and radically new; the timeless image of the royal sphinx, bathed in the unblinking light of Akhenaten’s revolutionary god.

The slabs showing Akhenaten as a human-headed sphinx beneath the Aten, often offering libation vases, are generally carved on small-to-medium limestone blocks, many of which share the same stylistic features. Almost certainly from the temples Akhenaten built at Karnak and/or Amarna, but most are believed to have originated from East Karnak, before he founded Akhetaten.

Before moving the court to Amarna, Akhenaten (then still Amenhotep IV) built a series of open-air Aten temples at Karnak, including the Gem-pa-Aten (“The Aten is Found”), the Hwt-benben, the Rud-menu, and various ancillary shrines

These buildings were constructed almost entirely of small limestone blocks, which were easy to quarry, carve, transport, and (later) dismantle. Many of the sphinx scenes are exactly this size and type. After Akhenaten’s reign, these temples were torn down, and the blocks used as building filler inside later pylons and foundations. During 19th–20th century excavations, thousands of fragments were recovered from these later constructions. These sphinx slabs likely came from such finds.

Why a Pharaoh Appears as a Sphinx

For the Egyptians, long before Akhenaten’s day, the sphinx was the visual embodiment of royal power. The lion’s body symbolised overwhelming strength, guardianship, and the king’s ability to subdue chaos. The human head, crowned or otherwise, proclaimed wisdom, command, and identity. Together, they formed a creature of divine might, the king in his most potent, eternal form.

From the Old Kingdom onwards (think of the Great Sphinx of Giza) kings were routinely shown in this guise. These images were not literal portraits; they were theological statements, announcing that the king was the earthly guarantee of order (ma’at) and the chosen defender of Egypt.

Why Akhenaten Used the Sphinx Motif Despite His Religious Revolution to Aten

Akhenaten swept away much of Egypt’s traditional imagery during the mid-14th century B.C., yet he did not abandon the sphinx. In fact, these slabs show him embracing it but reshaping it to fit his new religious world.

Although Akhenaten reinvented theology, he still had to present himself as a legitimate pharaoh.
The sphinx was too iconic an image to discard. It communicated immediate authority, kingship, and cosmic power—useful symbols even for a revolutionary.

The sphinx becomes a servant of the Aten

Amarna religion placed Akhenaten in an utterly unique position as the sole human who could truly “know” the Aten. By depicting himself as a sphinx beneath the Aten, he is shown charged with divine light, suffused with the god’s radiance, and sanctified in an almost mythic form.

The sphinx form expresses devotion and transformation. In these slabs, the pharaoh kneels as a lion-bodied creature yet lifts human hands (or forepaws) in offering. It is an image of fervent devotion, the king physically reshaped by his piety. The sphinx becomes a metaphor: Akhenaten is the living vessel of the Aten, mighty as a lion, yet humble before the solar disc.

What Is an Ancient Egyptian Sphinx?

In Egypt, a sphinx was not the Greek creature of riddles and mischief. It was something far older, far more regal, and entirely Egyptian in origin. An Egyptian sphinx is a lion’s body; the symbol of overwhelming strength, protection, and the blazing power of the sun. A human head, usually the king, wisdom, authority, and divine intellect. And the embodiment of royal power, in a single composite form. It was the king as a cosmic guardian: powerful, wise, and eternal.

The Egyptian word for a sphinx was šesep anḫ (sometimes transliterated sheshep-ankh), meaning: “Living Image.” This name is wonderfully telling. The Sphinx was not simply a statue. It was considered the living image of the king, or even a living form of the sun god’s earthly manifestation. Later, especially in New Kingdom texts, the Great Sphinx of Giza itself was called Hor-em-Akhet meaning “Horus-in-the-Horizon.” This links the Sphinx directly with the falcon god Horus, symbol of kingship and the rising sun.

When we say “sphinx,” we usually imagine the human-headed lion, the royal form, the šesep anḫ, the “Living Image” of the king.
But the Egyptians were wonderfully imaginative with composite beings, and the sphinx was not always human-faced. Alongside the classic royal sphinx, there were Ram-Headed Sphinxes (Criosphinxes), Falcon-Headed Sphinxes (Hieracosphinxes) and even Jackal-Headed Sphinxes (Less Common but attested).

To the Ancient Egyptian mind, these were not “fantasy creatures” but theological metaphors carved in stone. Each form expressed a particular idea. In other words, the Egyptians used the lion’s body as a kind of canvas, capable of carrying whichever divine or royal essence needed to be expressed.

We often think of the Sphinx through a modern lens; mysterious, iconic, half-buried in sand. But how did Ancient Egyptians see it? The Sphinx stood at the very threshold of the pyramid field of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. Its position was symbolic as a watchful guardian, protecting the royal tombs and the divine landscape of the Giza plateau.

By the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1069 B.C.), Egyptians believed the Sphinx embodied Horus, the sky-god, and was linked to Re-Horakhty, the combined form of Horus and the sun-god. This explains why Thutmose IV calls it “Horus-in-the-Horizon,” and why it is associated with the rising sun, rebirth, and the eternal cycle of kingship.

When Thutmose IV visited Giza (c. 1400 B.C.), the Sphinx was already over a thousand years old (as ancient to him as the Vikings are to us). Imagine the awe; a gigantic, forgotten guardian from a far-off golden age.

Thutmose IV’s “Dream Stela” famously describes the Sphinx as buried up to its neck in sand, suffering from neglect long forgotten by many. The prince falls asleep in its shade, and the Sphinx speaks to him in a dream, promising he will become king if he clears away the sand and restores it.

This tells us something vital, that even in antiquity, the Egyptians experienced the Sphinx as an ancient, weathered, mysterious relic. It had already “outlived” royal dynasties, religions, and eras.

A Monument of Prophecy and Kingship, Thutmose IV used the Sphinx to legitimise his reign. It then becomes a divine oracle. It is the voice of the god Horus. Furthermore, it “chooses” the king. This suggests Ancient Egyptians still saw the Sphinx as a living, responsive power, capable of granting kingship.

And yet, paradoxically…

Sand drifted, winds blew, dynasties rose and fell, and the Sphinx was frequently neglected. Egyptian history is full of cycles of care and abandonment, Thutmose IV simply left us written proof of one such moment.