They say that he comes regularly when his father dies and if he be like the painting, he is of this size and nature, that is to say, some of his feathers are of gold color and others red, and in outline and size he is as nearly as possible like an eagle. ![]() There is also another sacred bird called the phoenix, which I did not myself see except in painting, for in truth he comes to the Egyptians very rarely, at intervals, as the people of Heliopolis say, of five hundred years. His story is probably based on a description by Hecataeus of Miletus. The next step in the development of the myth can be found in the Histories of the Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who again stresses the element of longevity. The first Greek known to have mentioned the phoenix ("the 'brilliant one"), was the poet Hesiod (c.700 BCE), who in The precepts of Chiron stresses the phoenix's longevity of almost 100,000 years.Ī chattering crow lives out nine generations of aged men,Īnd a raven's life makes three stags old, Indeed, the temple of the benu was well-known for its time-keeping devices ( clepsydrae) and the priest who was responsible for the calendar. The benu had sprung from the god's heart.īecause the bird was thus associated with creation and renewal, it was easily connected with the calendar. In another myth, the famous bird was associated with the god Osiris, who had once renewed itself. The priests showed this pillar to visitors, who considered this the most holy place on earth. It had rested on a pillar that was known as the bnbn-stone. The benu was especially venerated in the town that is usually called Heliopolis ("city of the Sun").Īccording to the Heliopolitan myth, the benu had created itself from a fire that was burned on the holy jšd-tree in one of the sacred precincts of the temple of Ra. Therefore this bird, sometimes called "the ascending one", was associated with the sun god Ra, whose ba (soul) it was thought to be. ![]() During the flood of the Nile, this beautiful, bluish bird rests on high places and resembles the sun floating over the waters. In Egyptian mythology, the bird benu (or purple heron) played an important role. The Egyptian mythology and its Greek interpretations must be distinguished.
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