"O Atum-Khoprer, you became high on the height, you rose up as a bnbn-stone in the Mansion of the Benu in On (Heliopolis)."

Pyramid Texts, utt 600, § 1652

The Benu bird is the prototype of the Greek Phoenix, which Herodotos some 2000 years later than its first appeareance in ancient texts confused it with. True, there are mythological similarities between these two creatures, they are both linked to the sun and to rebirth but the differences are greater than the similarites and revolve around other matters.

Origin
The Benu bird is mentioned for the first time in the Pyramid Texts, utterance 600, which is cited above. At this time, the Old Kingdom, the bird was represented as what is thought to be a wagtail, (Motacilla flava) and symbolizing Atum, the Heliopolitan sun-god. Later, in the Middle Kingdom, the Benu was called the 'Ba' (physical manifestation of the soul) of the sun-god Re . In the Book of the Dead from the New Kingdom, however, the Benu is represented as a grey heron (Ardea cinera), with two long head plumes and a straight beak. Though primarily associated with Atum and Re, the resurrection aspect led to an association with Osiris and the heron was sometimes depicted wearing the 'atef' crown.

The hieroglyphs

Manifestation of the Creator God
The Benu was one of the manifestations of the creator god at Heliopolis. Like him, the Benu was imagined as being self-created, in mythological papyrii from Dyn 21 he is described as 'He who came into being by himself'. He emerged out of the original darkness before creation to be:

"...that breath of life which emerged from the throat of the Benu bird, the son of Re in whom Atum appeared in the primeval nought, infinity, darkness and nowhere."

By the cry of the Benu bird, existence was announced as coming into being. The silence of the primeval night is broken and light and life is brought to creation.

This is no minor deity but, to quote Rundle Clark: "the herald of all things to come" and an aspect of the creator god himself. From the 'Isle of Fire', the mythical place where the gods were born, beyond the limits of the created world, the Benu comes flying. And the place where it lands becomes the symbolic center of the earth - Heliopolis. On the sarcophagus of the God´s Wife of Amun, Ankhesneferibre, (British Museum) the Benu is perched on a sacred willow tree in the temple.

There are depictions of the heron perching on a cliff or a little piece of land which is rising above the flooded waters. In this way it became an adequate image of life emerging out of the primeval waters at the first time of creation, just like the sun was said to do, and thus symbolising rebirth. This piece of land was called the 'ben-ben' stone, and as the place where the heron landed at the time of creation, it became the sacred stone of Heliopolis. It is seen in the hieroglyph with the sitting heron (G32).

A Symbol of Rebirth
Because of its association with rebirth, the heron also became a manifestation of the resurrected Osiris. There are depictions of the heron wearing the 'atef'-crown normally worn by Osiris and also of it sitting in the sacred willow tree of Osiris. In the Underworld the Benu is a symbol for expected renewal of life, and appears on heart scarabs which were buried with the deceased, as well as frequent depictions in the afterlife books. There are also astronomical paintings where the heron is representing 'Dja', the 'Crosser', the ancient Egyptian name for the planet Venus which might suggest the changing phases if this planet. Perhaps also the conception of Venus as the forerunner to the sun, out of the Underworld, announcing the coming of the new dawn, put the similarity there with the Benu as a herald of good tidings.

Herodotos and the Phoenix
Let´s say this first; Herodotos was a stranger to the Egyptian way of thinking and interpreted what he heard and saw according to his own cultural conditioning. Herodotos was told about the Benu by priests at Heliopolis, during his travels in Egypt in the 500´s B.C. This is what he tells:

'They have also another sacred bird called the phoenix which I myself have never seen, except in pictures. Indeed it is a great rarity, even in Egypt, only coming there (according to the accounts of the people of Heliopolis) once in five hundred years, when the old phoenix dies. Its size and appearance, if it is like the pictures, are as follow:- The plumage is partly red, partly golden, while the general make and size are almost exactly that of the eagle. They tell a story of what this bird does, which does not seem to me to be credible: that he comes all the way from Arabia, and brings the parent bird, all plastered over with myrrh, to the temple of the Sun, and there buries the body. In order to bring him, they say, he first forms a ball of myrrh as big as he finds that he can carry; then he hollows out the ball, and puts his parent inside, after which he covers over the opening with fresh myrrh, and the ball is then of exactly the same weight as at first; so he brings it to Egypt, plastered over as I have said, and deposits it in the temple of the Sun. Such is the story they tell of the doings of this bird. '

It´s easy to see how Herodotos mixed what he was told with elements of the myth of the Phoenix, which was known to him from other ancient authors. The similarities between the Benu and the various Phoenix myths which existed and still exist around the world, from Europe to China, come together in the associations with rebirth, the solar motif and the connection with Heliopolis. During the ancient days several authors added to the myth In ancient Rome the phoenix was used politically as a symbol for the Roman Empire´s ability to regenerate its power and in Christian times the Church fathers incorporated the Phoenix as a symbol for the immortal soul. Motifs like egg, fire and various forms of regeneration can be found. But it all seems to have begun in ancient Egypt long before the time of Herodotos.

Herodotos tells us nothing about his priest-informants, if they were well-educated and highly placed in the temple hierarchy, or if they were young acolytes with not much knowledge of the sacred texts. There might also be problems with the translation from ancient Greek. Other sources for the Benu and its development through time since the first mentioning in the Pyramid Texts are lacking, all we know is that the Benu bird became included in funerary ritual where he ensured the rebirth of the deceased, but we don´t know how this development came about.

One thing to keep in mind when studying myths is to allow them their differences, no matter how eager we might be to see similarities between them. Their differences are reflections of their respective cultural belongings and heritage, and in a way they thereby reflect both the differences and the similarities between Man as he appears in his various cultures. And so, as with all efforts of understanding myths and their origin, we are left partially to wonder, which is not always a bad thing.