COURT STYLE, CIRCA LATE 5TH CENTURY B.C.

Within the Greco-Persian repertoire, there is a wide variety of human-headed monsters, almost always winged, including bull-men, who typically wear royal crowns, and sphinxes, both male and female. Bearded male sphinxes usually have leonine bodies but occasionally also sport goat horns and legs. The example presented here is a hybrid, with a fully leonine body but with the addition of goat horns. For a nearly identical example see no. GP-32 in Bernheimer, Ancient Gems from the Borowski Collection.