Many departments designed their own unique bird, which they displayed on municipal signs, stationery, city vehicles and employee uniforms. Over the years, Phoenix had more than 30 birds connected with the city. In Egypt, it was usually depicted as a heron, but in classic literature as a peacock or an eagle. It embalmed the ashes of its predecessor in an egg of myrrh and flew with it to Heliopolis, the "city of the sun," where the egg was deposited on the altar of the sun god. The bird then was consumed by the flames.Ī new phoenix sprang forth from the pyre. Only one phoenix exists at a time, and so when the bird felt its death was near, every 500 to 1,461 years, it would build a nest of aromatic wood and set it on fire. Every morning at dawn, the sun god would stop his chariot to listen to the bird sing a beautiful song while it bathed in the well. The phoenix bird symbolizes immortality, resurrection and life after death, and in ancient Greek and Egyptian mythology it is associated with the sun god.Īccording to the Greeks, the bird lives in Arabia, near a cool well. We also invite you to visit our City History webpage for more information about our city was created, or contact the Communications Office at 262-7177. Read more about that process on this page. As a result, the Phoenix bird became the official city symbol. The Bennu was also sometimes associated with Upper Egypt.The city of Phoenix was given its name by its founders because it had sprung from from the ruins of a former civilization that had vanished into history. The planet Venus was called the " star of the ship of the Bennu-Asar" (Asar is the Egyptian name of Osiris). From its body a small worm emerged that the sun's heat transformed into the new phoenix.Īnother story says that the phoenix rose again from the burnt and decomposing remains of his old body and took these to Heliopolis, where he burned them. Before the phoenix died it built a nest of incense twigs and laid down in it and died. This Arabian bird however was said to resemble an eagle with brilliant gold and red plumage. Herodotus goes on to record that the Bennu bird came from Arabia every 500 years carrying his father's body embalmed in an egg of myrrh. Herodotus, the Greek historian, says the following about the Bennu: "Another sacred bird is the phoenix I have not seen a phoenix myself, except in paintings, for it is very rare and only visits the country (so they say at Heliopolis) only at intervals of five hundred years, on the occasion of the death of the parent bird." The Bennu was known as the legendary phoenix to the Greeks. The Bennu was also considered a manifestation of the resurrected Osiris and the bird was often shown pirched in his sacred willow tree. The bennu thus was the got of time and its divisions - hours, day, night, weeks and years. It was the Bennu bird's cry at the creation of the world that marked the beginning of time. Standing alone on isolated rocks of islands of high ground during the floods the heron represented the first life to appear on the primeval mound which rose from the watery chaos at the first creation. The Bennu was also associated with the inundation of the Nile and of the creation. As a symbol of the rising and setting sun, the Bennu was also the lord of the royal jubilee. In the Late Period, the hieroglyph of the bird was used to represent this deity directly. Bennu probably derives from the word weben, meaning "rise" or "shine." The Bennu was associated with the sun and represented the ba or soul of the sun god, Re. Meaning: The Bennu was the sacred bird of Heliopolis. It had a two long feathers on the crest of it's head and was often crowned with the Atef crown of Osiris (the White Crown with two ostrich plumes on either side) or with the disk of the sun. There is some speculation that this bird may have been seen by Egyptian travelers and sparked the legend of a very large heron seen once every 500 years in Egypt. Archaelogists have found the remains of a much larger heron that lived in the Persian Gulf area 5,000 years ago. The bird may be modeled on the gray heron ( Ardea cinera) or the larger Goliath heron ( Ardea goliath) that lives on the coast of the Red Sea.
Home :: the Symbols :: Phoenix Phoenix (Bennu, Benu)Īppearance: The Bennu bird was a large imaginary bird resembling a heron.
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