The name of the phoenix in Egyptian is "Bennu" and this bird played a very prominent part in mythology, but the texts do not bear out the extraordinary assertions which have been made about it by classical writers.
All these fabulous stories are the result of misunderstandings of the Egyptian myth which declared that the rerewed morning sun rose in the form of a Bennu, and the belief which declared that this bird was the soul of Ra and also the lining symbol of Osiris, and that it came forth from the very heart of the god. The sanctuary of the Bennu was the sanctuary of Ra and Osiris, and was called Het Benben, i.e., the "House of the Obelisk," and remembering this is easy to understand the passages in the Book of the Dead, "I go in like the "Hawk , and I come forth like the Bennu, the Morning Star {i.e., "the planet Venus} of Ra " {xii. 2]; "I am the Bennu, which is in "Heliopolis" {Xvii.27}, and the scholion on this passage expressely informs us that the Bennu is Osiris.---Marie Parsons
From Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt by Richard Wilkinson---One of the three major cities of ancient Egypt, after Thebes and Memphis, Heliopolis, "city of the sun" in Greek, was situated in the area of Tell Hisn on the northwestern outskirts of modern Cairo. The ancient Egyptian name was Iunu, or iwnw, meaning pillar. Today it is largely covered by the suburbs of Cairo at el-Matariya and Tell Hisn. It is not situated on the bank of the Nile, but lay inland, to the west of the river, and was connected thereto by an ancient canal. Heliopolis, or On in Coptic, was the capital of the 13th Lower Egyptian nome. By the time of the Old Kingdom, the city was a center of astronomy as reflected in the title of its high priest, wr-m3w, "Chief of Observers" or "Greatest of Seers. This title was held by Imhotep during the 3rd Dynasty reign of King Djoser Netjerikhet, and dates earlier to the reign of Khasekhemwy in the second dynasty. Iunu/Heliopolis also had a reputation for learning and theological speculation, which it retained into Graeco-Roman times. Much of that learning centered on the role of the sun in creation, and maintenance of the world and in the persons of the gods Atum and Ra-Horakhty, whose temples must have graced the city. One of the earliest, richest, and most influential of theological traditions, centered in Iunu, was summarized in the concept of the Ennead, the group of nine gods that embodied the creative source and chief forces of the universe (though this number was not always nine; at some times it was as few as five, and other times as many as twenty or more; and often, the traditional Ennead includes a tenth god, Horus the Elder). By the beginning of the Old Kingdom that system had been formulated into a coherent philosophy, and it dominated Egyptian thought for the next three thousand years. Creation was viewed as an evolutionary process. However, it was recorded in typical Egyptian metaphors of birth rather than in abstract scientific or philosophical terminology. The Egyptians were aware that there had been a time when nothing was in existence, no sky, no earth, no humanity; the gods had not yet been born, nor had death yet existed (ref Pyramid Text Utterance 571, sect 1466). A source of creation was necessary in this nothingness. To the Egyptians, creation was an act of generation. Since they had an annual act of generation close to them in the Inundation of the Nile, they thought of the ultimate source of all created being as being the "primeval waters." Out of those waters, the god Atum arose. Pyramid Text Utterance 600 records this theology: Atum-Kheprer, you have come to be high on the hill, you have arisen on the Benben stone in the mansion of the Benu-bird in Heliopolis, you spat out Shu, you expectorated Tefnut, and you put your two arms around them as the arms of a ka-symbol, so that your ka might be in them. …O great Ennead which is in Heliopolis-Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys---children of Atum, extend his heart to his child, the king, in your name of Nine Bows. Benu Bird The benu-bird, or heron, figured prominently in paintings and reliefs throughout Dynastic history, as seen in the example of a bird in the solar barque from the tomb of Irynefer, Thebes, or in the example of the bird perched on a capstone from the Papyrus of Nakht, 18-19th Dynasty.
Rather interesting stuff I thought...
Perhaps when the phoenix postings are up others will try their hand at the firebird image!
[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] That would be cool with all the different styles!!!! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
---As The Crow Flies!---Maya
(another bit referring to the phoenix in other guises)
The Bird of Paradise,
the holy swan of song!
On the car of Thespis he sat
in the guise of a chattering raven,
and flapped his black wings,
smeared with the lees of wine;
over the sounding harp of Iceland
swept the swan's red beak;
on Shakespeare's shoulder he sat
in the guise of Odin's raven,
and whispered in the poet's ear
“Immortality!”
and at the minstrels' feast he fluttered
through the halls of the Wartburg.
by Hans Christian Andersen
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover."
-Mark Twain
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