The Privet Hawkmoth (Sphinx ligustri) is a moth of the family Sphingidae with a wing span of between 90 and 120 mm distributed throughout the Palaearctic flying from May to July. Research Privet Hawkmoth
Octave Feuillet was a French author. He was born in 1821 at Saint Lo and died in 1890. He became noticed about 1846 with his novels of Le Fruit Defendu, Le Conte de Polichinelle, and a series of comedies and tales which were published in the Revue des deux Mondes. In 1857 the appearance of Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre raised Octave Feuillet to the first rank of the novelists of the day. Amongst his other numerous novels are Monsieur de Camors (1867), Julia de Trecoeur (1872), Le Sphinx (1874), Histoire d'une Parisienne (1881), etc. His works earned great praise and the favour of the Napoleonic Court. Research Octave Feuillet
Thothmes IV was a king of Egypt of the XVIIIth dynasty. He reigned for about nine years from about 1447 BC until 1438 BC. He undertook military campaigns against Nubia and Phoenicia and maintained friendly relations with Babylon and Mitanni, marrying the Mitannian woman Mutemua, the first foreign alliance made by an Egyptian monarch. He arranged the removal of the sand drift which buried the great Sphinx at Gizeh Research Thothmes IV
In Egyptian mythology, the Crio-sphinx is a sphinx with the head of a ram, as distinguished from the andro-sphinx with a human head and the hieraco-sphinx with the head of a hawk. Research Crio-Sphinx
The Sphinx is a composite monster which appears in both Greek and Egyptian mythology. Both sphinx have the body of a lion and the head of a man - though the Egyptians had also two other sphinx with the head of a ram or a hawk. The Greek sphinx has wings, the Egyptian does not. In Greek mythology, the Sphinx posed a riddle to all who sought to pass. This riddle was at last explained by Oedipus, where upon the Sphinx destroyed itself. The Egyptian Sphinx was deemed to represent a real creature fabled to haunt the deserts, and was a god of wisdom and knowledge.
The oldest example of a statue of a sphinx is the Great Sphinx of Gizeh, in lower Egypt. This is a recumbent image of a man-headed lion, hewn out of a rocky knoll near the pyramid of Khafra. It is 57 meters long, the head nine meters long, the face four meters wide, and the height to the top of the head is 20 meters. The features were originally painted red, but were marred by mediaeval Mamelukevandals. Portions of the beard and uraeus are in the British Museum. In front of the breast Thothmes IV set up a granite slab, mentioning Khafra's name, to commemorate the digging of the image out of the drifted sand. Worshipped as Harmachis, there are the remains of an open-air temple between the paws, with an altar dating to Roman times.
The next oldest pair of sphinxes are a granite pair two meters long, bearing the name of Pepi I, of the Vith dynasty. Several examples from Tanis , once regarded as of Hyksos origin, are attributed to Amenemhat III. Under the New Empire avenues of sphinxes, mostly recumbent rams or ram-headed lions (crio-sphinx), were erected at Thebes from temple to temple. An unfinished Sphinx of that period was found in the Gebel Silsila quarries. Research Sphinx
The Black Watch (Watch or Highland Watch) was a British army force raised in 1729 to keep peace in the Highlands during the times of the Jacobite intrigue. The regiment was raised from companies employed to watch the Islands of Scotland and subsequently became renamed the Royal Highlanders and had the nickname of the Black Watch from the black tartan they wear. The Regiment's first blooding occurred in Flanders in 1745, in the War of Jenkin's Ear at the Battle of Fontenoy, where the French dubbed them 'Highland Furies'. In 1751 the Regiment was numbered the 42nd, The Gallant Forty Two. Seven years later the title 'Royal' was granted and it became the 42nd Royal Highland Regiment.
The Black Watch saw action in the Americas, most notably in Ticonderoga and the Heights of Abraham, and acquired its presentbadge and motto 'Nemo me impune lacessit' which refers to the Thistle and means 'nobody provokes me without being hurt'. In 1759 the red hackle, seen in the feather bonnets and worn by all ranks of the Black Watch, was first presented at Royston, in Hertfordshire.
During the Napoleonic Wars the Regiment fought at the Battle of Alexandria (hence the Sphinx and the word Egypt on its colours), in the Peninsula, including Corruna, and finally at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. Its 19th century battle honours include Alma and Lucknow, and in the 1860s Queen Victoria authorised the addition of the name 'The Black Watch' to the official title of the 42nd Royal Highlanders, a title which has become known throughout the world.
During the Great War, eleven Battalions of the Black Watch fought in France and Flanders, Macedonia, Mesopotamia and Palestine. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, former Colonel in Chief of the Black Watch since 1937 until her death, had two brothers and a first cousin in the 5th Battalion, another brother killed in 1915 with the 8th and a cousin killed serving with 4/5th. Armistice Day found the Regiment advancing across the very field at Fontenoy where the Watch had fought 173 years before. The French commemorated the stalwart assistance given to them in Champagne in 1918 by erecting a cairn on the spot where fell the body of The Black Watch soldier who advanced the furthest - 'Here shall flourish for ever the gloriousthistle of Scotland among the roses of France'.
The Gloucestershire Regiment is a British infantry regiment. The 1st Battalion was the old 28th Foot, raised in 1694. In 1782 it received the territorial title 'North Gloucestershire'. The 2nd Battalion was the old 61st Foot, raised in 1758 and in 1782 designated the 'South Gloucestershire'. The regiment bears the Sphinx as its badge worn at both the back and the front of the cap, giving rise to the regiment's nickname of the 'Fore and Aft'. The sphinxbadge commemorates the regiments gallantry in resisting a French cavalry attack in front and rear at Alexandria on March 21st 1801. Research Gloucestershire Regiment
The Sphinx AT2000 is a Swiss double-actionsemi-automatic service pistol made for the police market. The Sphinx AT2000 is chambered for the 9 mm Parabellum cartridge which it takes from a 15-round magazine, has fixed three-dot sights and a 95 mm barrel. Variations on the basic model include single-action and compact versions, and different calibres including 9 mm x 21 INI and .40 Smith and Wesson. Research Sphinx AT2000
Abbreviations
Research Hawk-moth
