Phoenix / Simurg / Kerkes / Rukh

The Phoenix bird is a symbol of resurrection and immortality, death and rebirth in fire. "The Phoenix bird is considered the most amazing of all the birds of the air. Some write that it lives in Arabia, others say about other places.

Another version of the description of the Phoenix was left to us in the VI century BC in the apocrypha of "The Revelation of Baruch" When Baruch asked, "what kind of birds are these," the angel replied: "This is the keeper of the world ... If it had not covered | then neither the human race, nor all creation on earth would be alive from the heat of the sun. " Thus, Phoenix saves people from the incinerating gaze of the luminary.
Phoenix was also known in Russia. The Pigeon Book says: Phoenix-bird - "to all mother birds." Her "feathers are stronger than steel and damask, they cut bones and stones, and when guests come from across the sea, they buy and cover feathers or velvets and satins."

Persian legends tell about the magic bird Rukh, it is also called Simurg. The body of the bird is covered with glossy crimson feathers, and the tail consists of alternating blue and red feathers. The bird lives for five hundred years, after which the cub carries the body of the parent to Egypt, to Heliopolis, and puts it on the altar of the Sun, where the Egyptian priests burn the bird.

Turkish legends speak of a similar bird Kerkes. The phoenix does not feed on anything alive, only dew, and never breaks what it lands on - thanks to these prescriptions, the fire flyer symbolizes meekness, and is the messenger of the gods.

The ancient Romans considered the Phoenix bird a symbol of an ever-reborn empire and depicted it on coins.
Five hundred years after Herodotus, the Roman historian Tacitus (c. 55 - c. 120) in the Annals (IV, 28) noted that "all antiquity is dark", but the Phoenix bird lives on earth in 1461.
Pliny the Elder (23-79) wrote that the life span of a bird coincides with the Great, or Platonic, year (during which the Sun, Moon and five planets make a complete revolution), which is 12 954 Earth years.
Thus, the death and rebirth of the Phoenix in the view of the ancients takes on the meaning of a cosmic cycle, during which the Universe is renewed. The world, like a bird, is born in fire and dies in fire in order to be reborn again.

This is what the great sages know,
That Phoenix is dying to rise like new.
When it comes to five hundred years.
Not herbs - his food, not fruit juice,
But incense tears and amom,
Backgammon and myrrh are mortal covers

Ovid