The inscription on the bronze sphinx statue found at the beginning of the 19th century was deciphered 200 years later. This was reported by Arkeonews.
A bronze statue of a sphinx dating to the 3rd century AD was discovered in Datia, a Roman province corresponding to modern-day Romania. He disappeared around 1848, but a detailed drawing of him survives.
It was determined that the inscription around the base of the bronze sphinx statue was written using the ancient Greek alphabet. But the text makes no sense. The new decoding showed that the letters had to be read in an unusual order. The inscription can be roughly translated as: “Wow! Worship: here it is, St. Leo.” Scholars believe this may mean an order to honor the Sphinx, whose cult may have entered Romania from the island of Naxos.
The decrypted poem is notable because the Sphinx cult was not part of mainstream Roman mythology. The discovery provides valuable information about a rare religion.
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