Bennu () is an

ancient Egyptian deity Ancient Egyptian deities are the gods and goddesses worshipped in ancient Egypt. The beliefs and rituals surrounding these gods formed the core of ancient Egyptian religion, which emerged sometime in prehistory. Deities represented natural for ...

linked with the Sun, creation, and rebirth. He may have been the original inspiration for the phoenix legends that developed in

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

Roles

According to

Egyptian mythology Egyptian mythology is the collection of myths from ancient Egypt, which describe the actions of the Egyptian pantheon, Egyptian gods as a means of understanding the world around them. The beliefs that these myths express are an important part ...

, Bennu was a self-created being said to have played a role in the creation of the world. He was said to be the '' ba'' (personality component of the soul) of the sun deity Ra, and to have enabled the creative actions of

Atum Atum (, Egyptian: ''jtm(w)'' or ''tm(w)'', ''reconstructed'' ; Coptic ''Atoum''), sometimes rendered as Atem, Temu, or Tem, is the primordial God in Egyptian mythology from whom all else arose. He created himself and is the father of Shu and ...

. The deity was said to have flown over the waters of

Nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service and contemplation, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 5 ...

that existed before creation, landing on a rock and issuing a call that determined the nature of creation. He was also a symbol of rebirth and, therefore, was associated with

Osiris Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wikt:wsjr, wsjr'') was the ancient Egyptian deities, god of fertility, agriculture, the Ancient Egyptian religion#Afterlife, afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He was ...

. Some of the titles of Bennu were "He Who Came Into Being by Himself", and "Lord of

Jubilee A jubilee is often used to refer to the celebration of a particular anniversary of an event, usually denoting the 25th, 40th, 50th, 60th, and the 70th anniversary. The term comes from the Hebrew Bible (see, "Old Testament"), initially concerning ...

s"; the latter epithet referring to the belief that Bennu periodically renewed himself like the sun was thought to do. His name is related to the Egyptian verb ''wbn'', meaning "to rise in brilliance" or "to shine".

Depiction

The

Pyramid Texts The Pyramid Texts are the oldest ancient Egyptian funerary texts, dating to the late Old Kingdom. They are the earliest known corpus of ancient Egyptian religious texts. Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved onto the subterranea ...

, which date to the

Old Kingdom In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning –2200 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourth Dynast ...

, refer to the 'bnw' as a symbol of Atum, and it may have been the original form of Bennu. In that word the shape of a bird used is definitely not that of a heron, but a small singing bird. The German '' Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache'' (Dictionary of the Egyptian Language) surmised that might have been a Yellow Wagtail (''Motacilla flava''), but no clear reason is given. However, the same bird is used in the spelling of a word 'bn.t' in a painted limestone relief wall fragment from the sun temple of the Vth Dynasty Old Kingdom king Niuserre. The hieroglyph clearly shows traces of blue-grey paint on much of the bird's body, indicating a different bird species. Rather, the shape and colour seem to point to a (Mediterranean)

Kingfisher Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly coloured birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species living in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...

(''Alcedo atthis'') for which, however, another name was in use: 'hn.tNile goose (I.e. 'smn') of the creator deity Amun in later periods, imagined to have been honking loudly in the primeval dark above the still waters in order to bring forth all creation by its voice.

New Kingdom New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 ** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, 1995 * "New" (Daya song), 2017 * "New" (No Doubt song), 1 ...

artwork shows Bennu as a huge

grey heron The grey heron (''Ardea cinerea'') is a long-legged wading bird of the heron family, Ardeidae, native throughout temperate Europe and Asia, and also parts of Africa. It is resident in much of its range, but some populations from the more norther ...

with a long beak and a two-feathered crest. Sometimes Bennu is depicted as perched on a

benben In the Ancient Egyptian creation myths, creation myth of the Heliopolis (ancient Egypt), Heliopolitan form of ancient Egyptian religion, Benben was the mound that arose from the primordial waters Nu (mythology), Nu upon which the creator deity Atu ...

stone (representing Ra and the name of the top stone of a pyramid) or in a willow tree (representing Osiris). Because of the connection with Osiris, Bennu sometimes wears the

Atef Atef () is the specific feathered white crown of the ancient Egyptian deity Osiris. It combines the Hedjet, the white crown of Upper Egypt, with curly ostrich feathers on each side of the crown for the Osiris cult. The feathers are identified a ...

crown, instead of the solar disk.

Possible animal model

Remains of a giant, human-sized heron species, thought to have gone extinct around 1500 BC, were discovered in the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East, at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a Federal monarchy, federal elective monarchy made up of Emirates of the United Arab E ...

in 1977. It lived on the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

and shared many characteristics with Bennu, and scientists believe it may have been the animal model for the deity. In reference to this, archaeologist Dr. Ella Hoch from the Geological Museum at

Copenhagen University The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public research university in Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. The University of Copenhagen c ...

named it the Bennu heron (''Ardea bennuides'').

Worship

Like Atum and Ra, Bennu was probably worshipped in the deities' cult centre at Heliopolis. Bennu also appears on funerary scarab amulets as a symbol of rebirth.

Connection with the Greek phoenix

The Greek historian

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

, writing about Egyptian customs and traditions in the fifth century BC, wrote that the people at Heliopolis described the "phoenix" to him. They said it lived for 500 years before dying, resuscitating, building a funerary egg with

myrrh Myrrh (; from an unidentified ancient Semitic language, see '' § Etymology'') is a gum-resin extracted from a few small, thorny tree species of the '' Commiphora'' genus, belonging to the Burseraceae family. Myrrh resin has been used ...

for the paternal corpse, and carrying it to the temple of the Sun at Heliopolis. His description of the phoenix likens it to an eagle with red and gold plumage, reminiscent of the sun. Long after Herodotus, the theme of the fire, pyre, and ashes of the dying bird, ultimately associated with the Greek phoenix, developed in Greek traditions. The name "phoenix" could be derived from "Bennu", and its rebirth and connections with the sun resemble the beliefs about Bennu; however, Egyptian sources do not mention a death of the deity.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Legendary creatures in Egyptian mythology Egyptian hieroglyphs: birds Bird deities Phoenix birds Epithets of Amun-Ra