2 Sphingen - apokalyptische Tiere
2 Sphingen - apokalyptische Tiere stand at the entrance to Munich’s Nordfriedhof, with rooster heads and lion bodies. The limestone figures face visitors as enigmatic guardians, bringing mythical imagery into the cemetery setting.
The sculptures are replicas, carved by stonemasonry students from limestone blocks weighing between two and three tons each. Their originals disappeared during the 1960s, apparently removed on the orders of city official Max Panitz during radical cemetery renovations. The recreated sphinxes were unveiled in 2019, when their return marked the bicentenary of Munich’s municipal cemetery and burial services. Thomas Mann also placed them in Death in Venice, where Gustav von Aschenbach encounters them at Nordfriedhof.
Their weight gives the figures a striking physical presence, while their rooster heads and lion bodies preserve the unsettling character of apocalyptic beasts.
- City
- Munich
- Content updated
Take this page with you
The myTuur app is free, and once you are standing at a spot its story starts by itself.
Spots like this one are the stops myTuur strings into tours through Munich. In the app, each story begins where you stand: walk up to a spot and it starts, read it on screen or listen as you go, then follow the route to the next one.
What is myTuur?
myTuur is a free city-guide app. Its tours are built from spots, and each spot carries a story that starts when you get there, to read or to listen to as you like.