Shesepankh

A shepsepankh is the original Egyptian sphinx, a creature with the head of a human and the body of a lion.

The largest and most famous of them is the Great Shepsepankh of Giza, situating itself on the Giza Plateau adjacent to the Great Pyramids of Giza on the west bank of the Nile River and facing east. (The shepsepankh is located southeast of the pyramids.) It sits astride a small temple on its behalf. The head of the Great Shepsepankh now is believed to be that of the pharaoh Khafra.

What names these creatures originally had is not known. At the Great Shepsepankh site, a 1400 BCE inscription on a stele belonging to the 18th dynasty pharaoh Thutmose IV lists the names of three aspects of the local sun deity of that period, Khepera–Rê–Atum. The inclusion of these figures in tomb and temple complexes quickly became traditional and many pharaohs had their heads carved atop the guardian statues for their tombs to show their close relationship with the powerful solar deity, Sekhmet, a lioness. Other famous Egyptian shepsepankh include one bearing the head of the pharaoh Hatshepsut, and the alabaster shepsepankh of Memphis (from Inbu Hedj, Egypt). The theme was expanded to form great avenues of guardian shepsepankh lining the approaches to tombs and temples as well as serving as details atop the posts of flights of stairs to very grand complexes. Nine hundred with ram heads, representing Amon, guarded Waset (which the Greeks also called Thebes) as it is the city where his religion was strongest.

The Great Shepsepankh has become an emblem of Egypt.

Etymology
Perhaps from Egyptian šzp-ꜥnḫ 'divine image' or literally 'living image' which originally referred to the statue of the shesepankh, which was carved out of "living rock" (rock that was present at the construction site, not harvested and brought from another location), than to the beast itself.