Scientists gather at the international convention organised by the Royal Archaeological Society. Not only archaeologists were invited, but also representatives of biochemistry, medicine, pharmacology, and law. The president opens the convention by briefly introducing an Egyptologist and a neurosurgeon standing next to him, and promises to explain the reason for bringing together such an unusual combination of disciplines pointing to a mysterious object covered with a white sheet. 

The Egyptologist recounts how, during excavations of a temple of Seth in Egypt, his team found a stone chest sealed with wax and resin, and a single papyrus scroll inside. The text in the scroll was a kind of scientific testament written by a priest-physician who had worked as an embalmer in a House of the Dead for many years. There, he conducted his first experiments in inter-species organ transplantation between humans and animals, until he was discovered by the priestly collegium and exiled to a distant temple of Seth, where the scroll was found. The next section of the papyrus was a diary of transplants and an explanation of the origin of a hybrid creature called Sphinx. The priest attempted to bring to life the images of ancient Egyptian gods: Horus and Seth. His attempts failed, so he decided to transplant the head of a priestess onto the body of a lioness. This experiment was described as successful. As the manuscript provided methodological indications and a report on the transplantation process, the archaeological group asked neurologists to confirm or debunk the author’s knowledge of anatomy and neurosurgery. The knowledge and the experiment were assessed as reliable, which led to the idea of its recreation.

The second scientist, neurosurgeon, confirms that not only was the procedure feasible, but also decision was made to recreate it. The lioness chosen for the experiment was fed according to the prescribed regimen, and the human head was supposed to be taken from someone who had died in an accident and was beyond help. Every step of the process was to be recreated from the manuscript, including the use of original Egyptian herbs and even magic formulas. The body eventually obtained for the experiment belonged to a young prostitute addicted to alcohol, whose death was caused by stabbing. The transplant succeeded. Having given the audience this explanation, the scientist approaches the mysterious shape and removes the covering sheet from the chest. 

Inside lies the body of a lioness with the head of a peroxide blonde: a Sphinx, temporarily blinded by the bright lights. After a while of absolute silence, the big cat rises up and looks at the gathering, seeing men only. Suddenly, in a whisky voice, the creature, apparently greeting them, asks: ‘How are you doing, lads? Well, which one of you is going to buy me a drink?’.

Ros sent this short story to the editorial team to contribute to the international discussion on organ transplantation and its moral, legal, medical and theological aspects. It is worth noting, that he was painfully aware of the horror of experiments on human beings, having witnessed the murderous, genocidal research conducted on prisoners of Auschwitz concentration camp by Josef Mengele.

Instead of writing an essay on transplantology, he wrote an “archaeological” short story as a means to express his attitude towards this complex issue at a time, when in Poland, the discipline was still in its infancy (the first successful kidney transplant took place in 1966 and the first successful heart transplant in 1985).

The mythical Sphinx has been chosen as the symbolic hybrid creature. In fact, the author has made the creature not only an animal-human hybrid, but also a hybrid of various characteristics, including Egyptian and Greek. Although the author chose an ancient Egyptian setting as the background for his story, the image of his protagonist is not exactly rooted in Egyptian culture. Typically, Egyptian sphinxes are representations of male rulers, regarded as strong, noble, and benevolent, often wearing royal headcloths. The only instance of a woman being sculpted as a sphinx was the pharaoh Hatshepsut. In Ros’ story, however, the sphinx created by the ancient priest is not intended to commemorate the pharaoh. The only reason for creating a female sphinx was the failure to achieve the priest’s primary goal, recreating the image of the gods (depicted as men with the heads of wolves and eagles). It led the priest to seek another solution, creating a fully female hybrid using the head of a seer priestess who had been bitten by a snake, a sign of god’s punishment. Thus, for the priest, the female hybrid is not equal to the ‘divine’ one that he intended at first, but in fact the lesser option involving a woman who offended the gods and was seen as a lower-category human. Modern imitators of the procedure faced a similar situation. The only head available for the experiment belonged to a prostitute: a despised and socially marginalised individual, whose only value for them was being a ‘donor’. 

The sphinx in the story has more in common with the Greek Sphinx than with the Egyptian ones, although not all features align. Born into a family of strange, monstrous creatures (such as Cerberus, the Hydra and the Chimaera), the Greek predecessor was undoubtedly female and a combination of more than two species, having the body of a lioness, the head of a woman and strong wings. She could talk and could engage people in a discussion, posing them a mental task of answering riddles According to Apollodorus, the Thebans “were in possession of an oracle which declared that they should be rid of the Sphinx whenever they had solved the riddle; so they often met and discussed the answer, and when they could not find it the Sphinx used to snatch away one of them and gobble him up.”* The story reflects the gatherings of Theban men deliberating on the solution – scientists gather around the Sphinx, all are male and all contemplate her mysterious appearance. They are potential victims of her paws and predatory instincts, which heightens the tension. Despite the comic effect of the contrast between their elegant convention and her rude words, they are all in danger because of her existence. The situation alludes to the myth of the tragically cursed royal house of the Labdacidae and its toxic influence on the Theban society. Here, the decision to re-enact ancient procedures without thinking through the consequences and sinister ethical dimensions shows the danger as well as the absurd of allowing potential excesses of science unbridled by morality and common sense.

* Lib. 3.5.8, trans. James George Frazer.

χρησμοῦ δὲ Θηβαίοις ὑπάρχοντος τηνικαῦτα ἀπαλλαγήσεσθαι τῆς Σφιγγὸς ἡνίκα ἂν τὸ αἴνιγμα λύσωσι, συνιόντες εἰς ταὐτὸ πολλάκις ἐζήτουν τί τὸ λεγόμενόν ἐστιν, ἐπεὶ δὲ μὴ εὕρισκον, ἁρπάσασα ἕνα κατεβίβρωσκε.

The entry presents the result of research conducted within the project “Classical Antiquity in Periodicals for Children and Young Adults in Polish People’s Republic (PRL) – Classical Education, Promotion of Political Ideology, or Expression of Resistance? Changes in the Reception of Classics in the PRL from 1945 to 1989,” funded by the National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki) Preludium grant no. 2022/45/N/HS2/00549, and led by Marta Pszczolińska at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales” at the University of Warsaw.