Faraonsfinge

What makes this sphinx distinct is not its size but its material: granodiorite , a stone harder than the limestone of Giza, sourced from the quarries of Aswan. This choice was deliberate. In ancient Egypt, granodiorite was reserved for statues meant to last for eternity — for gods, kings, and temple guardians. The Faraonsfinge was never a monument for the public square. It was a private, potent object, perhaps placed in a temple treasury or a royal tomb’s antechamber.

Modern imaging in 2015 using reflectance transformation photography (RTF) revealed ghostly traces of the original cartouche. The signs appear to read: Maat-ka-re — the throne name of Hatshepsut (1479–1458 BCE). If confirmed, the Faraonsfinge would be one of the few surviving three-dimensional portraits of Hatshepsut as a sphinx. Only a handful exist: the famous red granite sphinx at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and a broken quartzite example in Cairo. This Stockholm sphinx, granodiorite and palm-sized, would be the third. faraonsfinge

The Faraonsfinge was purchased in 1827 by Count Gustaf Fredrik von Rosen, a Swedish diplomat and amateur Egyptologist. Von Rosen kept a Wunderkammer — a cabinet of curiosities — at his manor in Östergötland. The sphinx sat among Etruscan urns, Roman glass, and fossilized sea lilies. Von Rosen called it ”Egyptiska lejonet med människohuvud” — the Egyptian lion with the human head. But later, his younger brother, a poet, gave it the more evocative name Faraonsfinge , which stuck. What makes this sphinx distinct is not its

In 1874, the von Rosen collection was donated to the Swedish state. The sphinx traveled by steamship from Norrköping to Stockholm, then by horse-drawn cart to the National Museum. For decades, it was mislabeled as a Roman copy of an Egyptian original — because no one believed a genuine Middle Kingdom sphinx could be so small, so perfect, so far from the Nile. In 1923, British Egyptologist Margaret Murray visited Stockholm and examined the Faraonsfinge. She noted something strange: the base showed signs of recarving. The sphinx, she argued, had originally borne a cartouche of a female pharaoh — possibly Hatshepsut or Sobekneferu — that was later chiseled away and replaced with anonymous royal epithets. Why erase a queen’s name? Murray speculated: political damnatio memoriae , religious reform (Akhenaten’s Atenist revolution?), or simply a later king’s usurpation. The Faraonsfinge was never a monument for the public square

But the RTF data remains contested. Some epigraphers argue the signs are later forgeries, added by 19th-century dealers to increase value. The debate continues, unresolved — and perhaps appropriately so. A sphinx without a riddle is merely a statue. Why would Hatshepsut — or any pharaoh — commission a sphinx barely larger than a loaf of bread? Scale matters. Colossal sphinxes lined processional ways, guarding temple gates. They were for public awe. Small sphinxes, however, served a different purpose: they were temple furniture or tomb equipment . The Faraonsfinge likely sat in a shrine niche, receiving daily offerings of incense and bread. Or it was placed in a tomb as a shaum — a protective being that would magically animate in the underworld to ward off the serpent Apep.