Statues of sphinxes commonly crowned the tall, slender marble stelai that elite Athenians erected over the graves of the dead in the Archaic period. This example (24.97.87), among the earliest preserved, includes both sphinx and the top of the stele, which elegantly flares upwards into a cavetto capital. Along the edge of the capital, just below the sphinx’s feet, inscribed letters read: “I am the memorial of [...]linos.” The partially preserved word ending in “linos” was the name of the deceased individual whose grave the stele marked. But who, we might ask, is “I”? The stele into which the letters are inscribed? The sphinx perched above, who twists her head towards us as if acknowledging our presence? Or the gravesite as a whole, including the burial below? While any of these is plausible, another possibility exists. For unlike today, where we are accustomed to reading in silence, in antiquity text was customarily read aloud. When we read this inscription, we take on the voice of the memorial ourselves. To stand before the monument, look at it, and read its inscription is to take on the role of memorializing the deceased through our own speaking voice.⁣ ⁣ #GreekRoman #TheMet #ArtThatSpeaksToUs #Sphinx #Stele