Many peoples of antiquity, in the same incomprehensible way, created in their mythology, and then in literature, art and even in scientific treatises, the image of a "fabulous" flying creature - a bird named Phoenix (Phoenix, Phoenix, Phoenix, Finist, Fenghuan, Bennu, etc.)
… From somewhere in the East, most often from Arabia or India, to the center of the then civilized world of Egypt, to the Temple of the Sun, an outlandish bird-like creature arrives, the likes of which people have never seen in nature. Outwardly, it resembles either an eagle, or a peacock, or a heron, although its actions are far from birdlike.
For example, a “bird”, having arrived, burns itself, and then reborn from the ashes: a new, “young” Phoenix, having matured, flies back to Arabia, so that many years later again fly to the Temple of the Sun and repeat the same miracles …
Numerous versions of this legend were found in Egypt, Sumer, India, Tibet, Assyria, Babylon, China, ancient Greece and Rome and in other countries. Legends about the Phoenix are different both in time of origin and in place of origin, differing from each other in minor details.
A fantastic bird from antiquity "flew" to the European Middle Ages, to Russia (Finista is a clear falcon), to the literature of modern times (Voltaire, "The Princess of Babylon").
The famous Egyptologist B. Turaev pointed out that in Geli-opole there was a temple (Ha-bennu, which means the temple of the Phoenix), where a sacred tree grew, on which the Phoenix sat, and on the leaves of the tree the gods recorded royal anniversaries.
At this place, Phoenix was born in the morning among the flames … Note that in Egyptian myths Phoenix does not come from the East, it is local.
Born daily at sunrise and dies daily, also in flame (dawn). And only much later the figure of 500 years began to appear in mythology - the interval between the appearance of the Phoenix in Egypt.
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Let us now turn to the ancient authors. Let's start with the "father of history" Herodotus (5th century BC). At first, he confesses that he heard this legend "from the words of the Heliopolitans," but he himself saw the Phoenix only in images. Here are excerpts from his legend: “There is another sacred bird called the Phoenix. I have not seen Phoenix alive, but only images, since he rarely arrives in Egypt: in Heliopolis they say that only once every 500 years. Phoenix arrives only when his father dies. If his image is correct, then the appearance and size of this bird are like this.
Its plumage is partly golden and partly red. In appearance and size, he most of all resembles an eagle. The following is what they tell about him (this story seems implausible to me).
The phoenix comes as if from Arabia and carries with him the body of his father anointed with meek to the temple of Helios, where he buries him. Carries it like this. First, he prepares a large egg from myrrh, which he can carry, and then tries to pick it up.
After such a test, Phoenix breaks the egg and puts his father's body there. Then he again seals the punctured place in the egg, where he put his father's body. The egg with the father's body is now as heavy as before.
Then Phoenix carries the egg (with him) to Egypt, to the temple of Helios. This is what this bird is said to do."
Similar versions of legends are given by other authors (Ovid, Pliny, Hesiod, Hecateus). Some of them claim that the Phoenix itself flies to Heliopolis every 500 years.
There he burns in incense; from the ashes it is reborn again, first in the form of a caterpillar, which on the third day begins to turn into a bird and on the fortieth day becomes it completely, and flies home to Arabia or India.
At the other end of Eurasia, in China, oddly enough, there are also legends about the fabulous birds of fenghuangs (phoenixes). “There is a legend in China,” writes N. Fedorenko in the book “The Land and Legends of China”, “that the sacred birds of the Phoenix lived in the country of Tianfango (that is, in Arabia) in ancient times.
When they were 500 years old, they gathered on fragrant trees, burned themselves and then reborn again from the dead ashes beautiful and never dying.
These birds are related to the Chinese feng huang birds. The ancient book "Kupyantszu" says: "Phoenixes are the essence of fire, they live on Mount Danxue." The closer to the beginning of our era, the more we find written evidence about the Phoenix, the more complete this evidence.
First of all, let us focus on two works: "Annals" by Tacitus, the Roman historian of the 1st century AD, who witnessed the last arrival of the Phoenix, and the poetic poem "The Phoenix Bird", attributed to Lactantius (III-IV centuries AD), since the poem aptly summarizes most of the other ancient evidence from numerous Phoenixes.
The sight of her wonder to the eyes
Tacitus tells of the arrival of the Phoenix, which took place just two decades before the birth of the author himself (about 35 AD).
“In the consulate of Paul Fabius and Lucius Vitellius, after a long cycle of centuries, the Phoenix bird returned to Egypt and delivered to the learned men from the natives of this country and the Greeks abundant food for reasoning about such an amazing miracle …
That this creature is dedicated to the sun and differs from other birds in its head and brightness of plumage, all who described its appearance agree on this; about his age they say differently.
Most define it as 500 years old, but there are those who claim that this Phoenix has been living for 1461, since earlier the phoenixes flew to Heliopolis, the first time under the reign of Ce-Sosis, the second time - Amasis, and the last - Ptolemy, who reigned as the third of the Macedonians, and they were always accompanied by many other birds of an unprecedented appearance.
Antiquity is dark, but Tiberius is less than 250 years old from Ptolemy. Therefore, some believe that the last Phoenix is not real, that he is not from the Arab land and that what the legend of antiquity says about the Phoenix does not apply to him.
At the end of his due years, feeling the approach of death, he builds a nest in his homeland and pours into it the fertile force, from which a chick emerges; and the first care of the chick when it reaches maturity is the burial of the father's remains. All this is unreliable and embellished with fiction, but there is no doubt that from time to time this bird is seen in Egypt."
A famous epic poem of the 4th century A. D. "Bird Phoenix", which, according to researchers, belongs to the pen of Lactantius, summarizes and generalizes the myths and legends about the Phoenix, common in different countries of the Mediterranean.
First, the poem depicts that "heavenly" land in the East, where Phoenix lived constantly. The reader is left to guess where this land is located: either in Arabia, or in India, or in Mesopotamia, or in Ceylon, or in Madagascar, or on some mysterious southern islands (the phoenixes of the ancient world, as the reader remembers, flew in from somewhere in the south, from Arabia).
Why does the author go directly to Phoenix, speaks about his pastime, gives him a description and claims that in his native country the bird lives alone. After that, the author tells about the approach of the end of Phoenix's life, when he turns 1000 years old and the bird begins to prepare for death.
It is noteworthy that in the poem the Phoenix flies not immediately to Egypt, but first to Syria or to Phenicia (in ancient times). By the way, the Syrian coast, where the magic bird of immortality flew, even in antiquity received the name "Phoenix Coast", Phoenician or Phenicia. In addition, the book "Physiologist", which was in circulation at the beginning of the era, speaking of Phoenix, also mentions "Lebanese cedars."
As you know, in addition to the Egyptian Heliopolis, there was the Syrian Heliopolis, from which the famous ruins of the Temple of the Sun near Baalbek have survived.
The next part of the poem gives a detailed picture of the death of Phoenix and the rebirth of the "new bird". Then follows the departure of the new Phoenix to the Egyptian Heliopolis to bury the "remains of the deceased father."
After that, the appearance of the Phoenix is drawn again, but already detailed and comprehensive.
The sight of her is a marvel to the eyes and inspires awe. The bird has so much posture, so much grandeur in it. She spreads her tail, sparkling with yellow metal, In spots, a bright crimson burns with a flame.
You say - her eyes are two huge hyacinths, And deep in them, grief, a clear flame trembles. On the head is a golden curved crown of radiant, With this venerable crown Phoebus himself crowned.
Hips with scales ah at her; cast in gold metal, But on her claws roses are the most charming color. None of the animals of the Arabian land can compare in size - there are no such birds or animals there.
Then a picture is given of the departure of the Phoenix, the reaction of the entire population of Egypt to it, and in conclusion - the praise of the Phoenix: But the Phoenix is not slow, like birds with a huge body: Their weight oppresses them, therefore their step is lazy and heavy.
The Phoenix bird is fast and light and royally beautiful. And before people appears, wondrous shining beauty.
In order to see this miracle, the whole Egypt comes running, The crowd honors the rare bird with applause. In marble, her appearance is immediately sculpted as sacred And a memorable day is marked on it with an inscription.
The Phoenix Bird by the Roman poet Claudian, which appeared shortly after Lactantius' poem, contains interesting new details.
Shortening the lengths of Lactantius, Claudian, in his idyll of Phoenix, tells how, sitting on a fire, Phoenix greets the sun with a jubilant song, asking him to give life-giving fire.
Sunny Phoebus shakes off one hair from his fiery head - and the fire engulfs the fire. After that, the flight of the renewed Phoenix begins from a blazing fire.
When the remains of the old Phoenix are burned on the altar, fragrant smoke fills all of Egypt up to the Pelusian swamps, giving people health. By the way, Pliny the Elder wrote that the ashes of the Phoenix were considered in antiquity to be an extremely rare and effective medical remedy.
Finally, in Claudian's case, the Phoenix not only has a shining crown on his head, but on the fly, the Phoenix scatters the darkness with a bright light (in Philistratus: “Phoenix is the only bird that emits rays”).
Undoubtedly, under the influence of the legends about the Phoenix, in particular the version of Claudian, wonderful Slavic tales of the shining firebird layered. The very term "firebird" quite accurately conveys the meaning of the Greek word "phoenix" (crimson). In Russian "Finiste - a clear falcon" it is not difficult to recognize the distorted "Phoenix".
In search of rational grain
What were the real prerequisites for the creation of myths, legends, legends about a wonderful bird? First of all, let's pay attention to the factual side of the matter.
Of course, our attempts to translate into modern scientific language the details of the combustion of the Phoenix, the birth of a new one, all stages of the growth of a young Phoenix (larva, egg, chick, adult Phoenix) will be unconvincing guesses, and we will not offer them here. The fabulous accessories in the appearance of the Phoenix are explained by the attempt of our "ignorant" ancestors to somehow describe, convey these facts.
And this could be done only by resorting to the description of the unknown through the known, something vaguely resembling. Hence the inconsistency in the description of Phoenix by different authors.
Here we would like to share some thoughts about magical and sometimes monstrous birds that can do the impossible, not only ignite spontaneously and reborn from the ashes, but also raise an elephant into the air, as many ancient authors reported, talking about the "miracles" of the East.
So, the bird rukh of Arab legends (aka simurgh among the Persians) obscured the sun when it rose into the air. In its claws, the rukh could carry off an elephant and even a unicorn with three elephants strung on a horn.
The famous Venetian traveler Marco Polo, who visited China during the reign of the Mongol Great Khan Kublai Khan, even spoke in detail about the gigantic Rukh living somewhere in the East.
Moreover, he gives a story about how Khubilai equipped an expedition in search of a winged monster. According to Marco Polo, the people of Kubilai found the homeland of the Rukh, it turned out to be the island of Madagascar, lying in the south of Arabia and Africa.
The travelers themselves did not see the birds, but they delivered to their inquisitive master the feather of a giant bird - 90 spans long. True, the commentators of this passage believe that the members of the expedition visited Madagascar, but inflated their ruler and brought him not a firebird feather, but a leaf of the Madagascar "Sagus ruffia" - a 15-meter palm tree, at the top of which there is a broom of 7-8 giant leaves that look like bird feathers.
However, zoologists who visited Madagascar in 1832 found the shell of a giant egg - six times larger than that of an ostrich. And in 1851, the bones of a giant extinct bird were found, according to which its scientific description was compiled.
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, who explored it, called the bird epyornis - "the tallest of all the tallest birds", its growth reached a height of 3-5 meters, and the giant of the feathered world weighed about 500 kilograms.
However, this "rukhh", being only a giant ostrich, could not fly. The outlandish bird became extinct or was destroyed by hunters only a hundred years before the appearance of naturalists on the island (as I. Akimushkin, the author of the interesting book "A Path of Legends", which tells about the disappeared animals, claims).
Thus, the legend of the giant rukh received a real justification. Could something similar happen to the Phoenix, a now unknown bird that disappeared (in the 1st century AD?), Captivating the imagination of the ancients with its beauty and extraordinary qualities?
Or do the stories about the Phoenix, as well as about other "iron" birds nesting at unattainable heights, taking people to the endless air heights, speak of the vivid imagination of our ancestors, striving to fly into the sky, to the life-giving sun?
Maybe these are prophetic ideas, a kind of glimpse into the future, admiration for the heroes who will boldly storm space, look for the "grass of life" and "the grass of immortality", seeking power over inert matter? We can only guess about this when we talk about the exciting "Phoenix phenomenon".