The Bennu was the sacred bird of ancient Egypt — a magnificent heron-like bird associated with the sun, creation, rebirth and the cyclical renewal of time, who was said to have arisen at the first dawn and to be reborn from its own self in an eternal cycle. The original phoenix, the Bennu is the bird of the sun and of resurrection, the inspiration for the deathless firebird of later legend.
The Bird of the Sun
The Bennu (Egyptian Bennu) was a sacred bird, usually depicted as a grey heron with a long beak and a two-feathered crest, often crowned with the solar disc or the Atef crown. It was a bird of the sun, creation and rebirth, closely associated with the sun-god Ra and the resurrection-god Osiris. The Bennu was the embodiment of the soul (ba) of Ra and the heart of Osiris, uniting the solar and the resurrection themes that were central to Egyptian belief. Its name was connected to ideas of rising and shining (the rising of the sun, the rising of the flood).
The Bird of the First Dawn
The Bennu had a central role in the myth of creation. It was said to have been the first being to arise at the dawn of creation — the bird that flew over the primordial waters of Nun and alighted on the first mound of land (the benben stone) that rose from the deep, or that gave the first cry that broke the silence of the pre-creation void and set creation in motion. As the bird present at the first dawn, alighting on the primal mound, the Bennu was bound up with the very beginning of the world, the herald and embodiment of the first sunrise of creation.
The Bird of Rebirth and the Phoenix
The Bennu was above all a symbol of rebirth, renewal and the cyclical nature of time. As the bird of the sun (which dies at sunset and is reborn at dawn) and of Osiris (who died and rose again), it embodied resurrection and the eternal renewal of life. It was associated with the cycles of time — the daily rebirth of the sun, the annual cycle of the Nile flood, and the great cycles of the ages — and it was thought to renew itself periodically, rising anew. This Egyptian bird of solar rebirth was the direct inspiration for the Greek and later legend of the phoenix — the magnificent bird that is consumed and reborn from its own ashes in an eternal cycle. The Greeks, learning of the Bennu, transformed it into the firebird that lives for centuries and then burns and is reborn, and through them the Egyptian Bennu became the deathless phoenix of world legend.
The Original Phoenix
The Bennu endures as the sacred bird of ancient Egypt and the original phoenix — the heron of the sun, creation and rebirth, who arose at the first dawn and embodied the eternal renewal of time and life. It embodies the Egyptian themes of solar and Osirian rebirth, the cyclical renewal of the cosmos, and the triumph of life over death; and it stands as the bird of resurrection — the herald of the first dawn, the soul of the sun, the embodiment of rebirth, and the ancestor of the deathless phoenix that has flown through the legends of the world ever since.
The heron of the sun that arose at the first dawn and embodies eternal rebirth — the original phoenix, the bird of resurrection whose legend became the deathless firebird of the world.
