The first author to give a full description of the Phoenix was Herodotus, a fifth-century BCE historian. But there were other traditions, too, including one in which the Phoenix lived in a special palm tree in Egypt, the syagrus palm, which died and was reborn with the Phoenix. Ī few sources wrote that the Phoenix lived in an Eden-like grove sacred to the sun. But it was also connected with other exotic lands: some sources claimed that it lived or died in Arabia, Ethiopia, Phoenicia, Assyria, or the Far East/India. The Phoenix was most closely associated with Egypt and the sacred city of Heliopolis (“Sun City”).
This word in turn seems to have been derived from the Egyptian verb wbn, meaning “to shine.” Pronunciation Some scholars have suggested that the name of the Phoenix came from the bird’s Egyptian name, benu. Even at this early date, the word possessed multiple meanings, including “palm tree” and “ griffin.” 1600–1100 BCE) it appears in the Linear B script (used before the adoption of the Greek alphabet) as po-ni-ke. Scholars agree that the word φοῖνιξ ( phoînix) is quite old, existing in some form since the Greek Bronze Age (ca. The name can be interpreted as anything from “shining bird” to “reddish-purple bird,” “palm tree bird,” or “Phoenician bird,” but there is no clear consensus on which is the “correct” etymology. The name is identical to a Greek word that can mean “palm tree,” “reddish-purple,” or “Phoenician” as a result, scholars since antiquity have sought creative connections between the Phoenix and the other diverse meanings of the word φοῖνιξ ( phoînix). The etymology of “Phoenix” (Greek Φοῖνιξ, translit.
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