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Bennu ( Ben-Ben ) - in Egyptian mythology, the bird is an analogue of the phoenix . According to legend, is the soul of the god Ra . The name is associated with the word “weben,” meaning “shine.”
According to legend, Benn appeared from a fire that burned on a sacred tree in the courtyard of the temple of Ra. According to another version, Bennu escaped from the heart of Osiris . According to another myth, Bennu was the first creature to emerge from the primary hill that arose among the water chaos, which marked the beginning of the creation of the world. It was depicted as a gray, blue or white heron with a long beak and a tuft of two feathers, as well as a yellow wagtail or an eagle with red and golden feathers. There are also images of Bennu in the form of a man with a heron's head.
The famous Greek historian Herodotus, who visited Heliopolis in the middle of the fifth century BC, heard a distorted version of the myth of the bird Bennu, which he outlined in his History:
“They [the people of Heliopolis] tell a story that does not seem trustworthy to me about what this bird does: Phoenix makes its way from Arabia, brings the parent bird all in myrrh to the temple of the Sun and buries the body here. In order to do all this, she first makes a ball of myrrh, as large as it can carry; then, it makes a recess in it and places the parent there, then seals the hole with fresh myrrh, and the weight of the ball is exactly the same as the original ball. She brings it to Egypt and lays it on the altar of the sun. That is the story they tell about this bird. ”
Bennu personified the resurrection from the dead and the annual floods of the Nile . It symbolized the solar beginning.
In culture
- He is the key character in the 4th series of the Totenstein animated series. In the story, Bennu can reverse time. By order of the pharaoh the bird returns the times of ancient Egypt.