"far off at its end the pillars spread to mark a vast round plaza, and in that open circle there loomed gigantic under the lurid night clouds a pair of monstrous things. huge winged lions of diarite they were, with blackness and shadow between them. full twenty feet they reared their grotesque and unbroken heads, and snarled derisive on the ruins around them. and carter knew right well what they must be, for legend tells of only one such twain. they were the changeless guardians of the great abyss, and these dark ruins were in truth primordial sarkomand. ...
"stretched before him the great corpse-like width of fabled sarkomand with its black broken pillars and crumbling sphinx-crowned gates and titan stones and monstrous winged lions against the sickly glow of those luminous night clouds."
h.p.lovecraft; the dream quest of unknown kadath.
stone lions and antlers at corbis.
halicarcossa, on the shore of the lake of the lord of the lake of hali. a terrace, two winged lions sculpted from a single stone of diorite. between them steps carved into a well.
one lion has lost both onyx eyes to time and thieves, the other surveys the world through the cracks of one eye time and thieves have forgotten.
they say that if a lone traveler listen he may hear the one-eyed lion tell the lion-blind what comes and goes before them. while the lion-blind is said to have an inward sight and sings to his twin what he sees beyond them.
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