The Phoenix, a fabulous, sacred bird of the Egyptians, figures in the mythology of many ancient people, but the best known story is the one in which the Phoenix is an Arabian bird which subsists on air for 500 years. At the end of that period, it covers its wings with spices and flies west to the temple of the sun. It enters the temple and is burned to ashes on the altar.
Next day the young Phoenix rises from the ashes, and by the third day is full grown. It salutes the priest and flies away, not to return for another 500 years.
The original symbolism of the Phoenix was tied in with the sun worship of the Egyptians, who regarded the sun as rising in Arabia, the land where the magic Phoenix lived, and moving westward. The bird became identified with the leg-ends of other nations, however, and has for many centuries symbolized the creation of the new from the ashes of the old.
