The Sphinx in "The Curse of Tut"

[TravelSteveR]

This has always been my favorite King Tut episode (it ran this morning on IFC). I especially love the prophesying Sphinx statue and would love to have a reproduction (much smaller, of course) to add to my Egyptian collection in my office. Does anyone know anything about it? Was it based on a real sculpture or designed specifically for the show? The only sphinxes I have found are the traditional ones in the lying pose. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Lord Death Man]

It has been a while since I saw this episode, but as I recall, the statue was not a sphinx at all but rather Anubis, the jackal headed god and Guardian of the Dead. Perhaps you might find something online by searching with that name. I believe the statue was an existing prop used in horror movies/historical films, as I know I have seen it before in some American movie.

[Jim Akin]

My guess -- and it's only a guess, as I've never watched the movie -- is that the statue is a leftover from Fox's 1963 Egyptian epic, Cleopatra. For what it's worth, despite the Batman script, the statue in Gotham Central Park isn't a sphinx. A sphinx has the body of a lion and the head of a woman, and is typically rendered walking on all fours, seated like a cat (think Catwoman's golden kitties), or lying down like the Great Sphinx of Giza. Sphinxes can't sit the way the figure in the statue does.

The statue is a stylized mashup with elements of multiple figures from Egyptian mythology: It has the head and body of the jackal-headed underworld god Anubis, who often assumes a seated pose. But the sun disc enclosed by cattle horns above its head is associated with the fertility goddess Isis, and Anubis doesn't have horns on his head. The statue's horns are somewhat suggestive of the god Khnum, an embodiment of the source of the Nile River -- which loosely ties into Tut's scheme, but I'm already overanalyzing, so I wouldn't make much of that. Khnum has a ram's head, and his horns are typically represented sticking out on either side of his head, not wrapped forward like the statue's. The horns more closely resemble those of Baphomet, a pagan goat-god first described during the Crusades, long after the Egyptian period, and since associated with satanism (he's often depicted with a pentagram in the place where the sun disc appears in the statue).

All of which is a long way of saying I think the statue is a pastiche cooked up by a studio prop department, rather than a copy of any ancient artifact. If so, there's no hope of finding a miniature in a museum shop anywhere, and best prospects for a reproduction lie with the folks behind the TV show.

Cheers,

QQ

[TravelSteveR]

I knew it wasn't a sphinx in the traditional sense--even the Egyptian sphinx doesn't look like a Greek sphinx--I have statues of all the Egyptian deities, and it definitely is a mish-mash of Anubis, Khnum, and a few others, including Hathor in her cow form. I am not sure why the prop-builder decided to mix all these elements together--sounds more chimaera than sphinx. I've done some searches for a seated Anubis, and most of them are black without the horns, of course. I may have to see if I can find a good pic of the one from the series and send it out to see if anyone knows its origins. If anyone has one or knows where to find one, please let me know.

Thanks, in advance
Steve

[Dr. Shimel]

Someone once posted a photo from a Lost in Space episode that showed the Sphinx in the background. LIS and Batman were known for sharing props.

[John Mack]

Not just LIS, but Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and Land of the Giants. The horned thingy may be from one of those shows. I know in VTBOS, our beloved Batcomputer makes an appearance either on the Seaview or their flying sub bridge.

John

[Gotham]

They often RE-used Monsters on LIS, one week it would be Green the next month I'd see it again with small changes made, and painted differently.
I also remember the standing Egyptian Coffins where the bad guys stood inside and shot each other.
through slots in front. If you looked you could see the trip wires that made them fall down.
I can't remember the episode exactly.
Cheers to all my Bat Buddies

[John Mack]

They often RE-used Monsters on LIS, one week it would be Green the next month I'd see it again with small changes made, and painted differently.
I also remember the standing Egyptian Coffins where the bad guys stood inside and shot each other.
through slots in front. If you looked you could see the trip wires that made them fall down.
I can't remember the episode exactly.
Cheers to all my Bat Buddies

That episode would be Zelda the Great, actually the second part. And just as an aside, Victor French was one of the hoods. He later went on to Little House on the Prarie and Highway to Heaven. His line, "What's the shooting schedule" also made it onto the soundtrack record. Talk about a different world back then. Today, if that happened, the actor would get paid for the record appearance as well. I met Victor in 1979, and I asked him about that. Not only was he not aware of the soundtrack being made, he had no idea he was on it!