PHOENIX, a fabulous bird, sacred to the sun (Gr. 436114E, apparently "bright-coloured"; 4)6tvc also means "a palm-tree"). From statements in a large number of classical and post-classical authors, ranging from the 5th century B.C. (Herodotus, perhaps Hecataeus) to the Middle Ages (Isaac Tzetzes) the following account is obtained : The phoenix was a large bird of very gor geous plumage, having, according to one or two authorities, a sweet voice. It was always male, the only one of its kind, and lived a long time (various authors give periods ranging from 500 years, the commonest account, up to 12,954; Tacitus, Annales vi. 4, gives 1,461 years, which is an Egyptian Sothis period).
At the expiration of that time it made itself a nest of twigs of spice-trees, on which it died, by setting the nest on fire and burning itself alive. From its body, or its ashes, or the nest, which it had fertilized, came forth another phoenix, either per fect or at first in the shape of a white grub. This young bird, as soon as it was strong enough, took up the body of its father, covered in spices, or the ashes, nest, and all, and flew to Heliopolis in Egypt, where it deposited them on the altar of the Sun. There are numerous variants in detail; sometimes the phoenix goes to Egypt to die, having produced its offspring before dying.
It was not doubted by the majority that the phoenix really was seen now and then in Egypt ; Tacitus, loc. cit., and Pliny, nat. hist., x. 2, mention recorded appearances, genuine and other wise. Attention is therefore drawn by A. Wiedemann to the facts that a bird of the stork kind, the bennu or bannu, was sacred at Heliopolis and connected with the local sun-worship, moreover, that its name also means a palm-tree. This certainly
gives a plausible origin for some parts of the Greek story and accounts for Herodotus's statement (ii. 73, I) that he saw a picture of it in Egypt ; for the bennu is to be found on surviving monuments. But it fails to account for the persistent statement that the phoenix is not a native of Egypt, but lives in Arabia, Assyria, Ethiopia or India, nor does the real or pictured bennu at all resemble the phoenix as described. Hence it is likely that the ultimate origin of the story, however it may have reached Greece, is to be sought in the mythology of one or another of these countries.
Many commentators still understand the word Stn, chol, in Job xxix. 18 (in King James's Version, "sand") to apply to the phoenix. This interpretation is perhaps as old as the (original) Septuagint, and is current with the later Jews. Among the Arabs the story of the phoenix was confused with that of the sala mander; and the samand or samandal (Damiri, ii. 36 et seq.) is represented sometimes as a quadruped, sometimes as a bird. It was firmly believed in; for the incombustible cloths woven of flexible asbestos were popularly thought to be made of its hair or plumage, and were in fact, called by the same name (cf. Yaqut i. 529, and Dozy, s.v.). The canka (Pers. simurgh), a stupendous bird like the roc (rukh) of Marco Polo and the Arabian Nights, also borrows some features of the phoenix. According to Kazwini (i. it lives 1,700 years, and when a young bird is hatched the parent of opposite sex burns itself alive.
Ancient and modern authorities are collected and analysed by Tiirk in Roscher's Lexikon, iii. col. 3,450 et seq.