TYPE: Sun God
ORIGIN: Egyptian (upper)
INFORMATION: A deity mentioned in Pyramid Texts (circal twenty-fifth century BCE) and linked with the sun god of Heliopolis, Atum. He is also said to have been self-created from the primeval ocean and is sometimes a symbol of rebirth in the afterlife. Benu may have augmented the Greek classical tradition of the Phoenix. He appears in the Old Kingdom as a yellow wagtail but later becomes a heron, wearing the conical white crown of Upper Egypt with two slender feathers pointing backwards from it's crest.