In ancient Greek and Egyptian mythology, the phoenix is a mythical bird
and associated with the Egyptian sun-god, Re and the Greek, Phoibos(Apollo).
According to the Greeks the bird lives in Arabia, nearby a cool well.
Each morning at dawn, it would bathe in the water and sing such a beautiful
song, that the sun-god stops his chariot to listen. There exists only
one phoenix at a time.
When it felt its death approaching (every 500 or 1461 years), it would
build a nest of aromatic wood and set it on fire, and was consumed by
the flames. When it was burned, a new phoenix sprang forth from the pyre.
It then embalmed the ashes of its predecessor in an egg of myrrh and flew
with it to Heliopolis ("the city of the sun"). There it would deposit
the egg on the altar of the sun god.
The phoenix symbolizes immortality, resurrection, brotherhood, and life after death. It is also a long standing symbol of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity. It is associated with the Egyptian Benu, the Garuda of the Hindus, and the Chinese Feng.
