Faraonsfinge May 2026

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.

Unknown — but not silent. Stand there long enough, and you might hear it: not a voice, but a presence. The weight of four thousand years pressing into the palm of your imagination. The riddle, still unsolved. End of write-up. faraonsfinge

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. What makes this sphinx distinct is not its

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. The Faraonsfinge was never a monument for the public square