Phoenix
Φοῖνιξ
The bird that burns itself to death and rises again from its own ashes.
Herodotus recorded it as a tale he heard in Egypt, saying the bird appears once every 500 years.
It is thought to be the Egyptian cult of the Bennu bird, reshaped as it crossed into Greece.
As a symbol holding death and rebirth in a single body, it long served Christian art as an emblem of resurrection.
SourcesHerodotus, Histories
Commonly confused
It is less a purely Greek myth than a story imported from Egypt and the Near East. That is why it barely ever crosses paths with the Greek gods.