In Greek mythology, what creature with a woman's head, lion's body, and wings poses a riddle? The answer is the Sphinx.
The Greek Sphinx is a female-headed creature with the body or haunches of a lion and the wings of a bird. In the best-known story, the Sphinx terrorized the region around Thebes by challenging travelers with a riddle. Those who failed were killed, traditionally by being devoured. Oedipus solved the riddle, causing the monster’s downfall and allowing him to enter Thebes.
A common mix-up is treating every sphinx as the Greek riddle-monster. Egyptian sphinxes usually have a human, often pharaoh-like, male head on a lion’s body and are generally associated with royal power, protection, and guardianship. They are normally wingless. Greek and Egyptian forms therefore share a lion body but differ in symbolism and appearance.
The Great Sphinx of Giza is the most famous physical sphinx. Egyptologists generally date it to about 2600–2500 BC and associate its head with Pharaoh Khafre.