Ancient literary sources and rare surviving objects testify to the monumental bronze utensils produced in Greece from the ninth to the sixth century B.C. This sphinx was one of the three—or more—supports that carried on their heads a shallow bronze basin measuring at least a meter in diameter. The hollow core of the piece is filled with lead, which helped to stabilize the utensil and, supplemented by rivets, held the various parts together. The sphinx has an elaborate coiffure with spiral curls over her forehead and tresses that fall behind her ears and widen in a succession of waves. A bolero-like arrangement of scales represents the feathers on her body and overlaps, in low relief, the flight feathers of her wings. She stands on a single feline paw, which is appropriate because a sphinx is part woman, part bird, and part lion. Among early utensil supports, female figures with demonic power are frequent; Gorgons rather than sphinxes predominate. Two hollows below the sphinx's wings indicate that originally she had a pair of arms or a second pair of wings, following Near Eastern prototypes.