Furniture support: female sphinx with Hathor-style curls ca. 18th century B.C. Old Assyrian Trading Colony This piece is one of a set of four furniture legs, probably found at the site of a palace at Acemhöyük in central Anatolia, carved in the shape of compact seated sphinxes without wings. They have large eyes with inlaid pupils, only one of which survives intact. Traces of gold foil remain on the hair and headdresses as well as eyes of some examples. The reddish staining of this piece indicates that iron oxides are present on the surface, although it is not known whether this was a deliberate decorative treatment, or a result of contact with the soil in which the pieces were buried. Each sphinx wears a wig or hairstyle in which heavy locks of hair ending in large curls, held behind protruding ears, frame the face, resembling images of the Egyptian goddess Hathor. In Egypt, sphinxes with the attributes of Hathor were associated with royal women. It is not known what these images mean