Already in Egyptian mythology there is Benu, usually associated with the sun god or Osiris, usually depicted in the form of a heron who dies in the evening and rises at dawn at sunrise.

In ancient Greece, Herodotus reported a myth that the ancient Egyptian sources do not confirm:

“There is another sacred bird called the Phoinix. I only saw him pictured because he rarely comes to Egypt; in Heliopolis they say only every five hundred years. He should only come when his father dies. If the picture is correct, it looks like this. Its plumage is partly golden, partly completely red. In structure and size it most resembles the eagle. The following is said about his actions, but it doesn't seem credible to me. He flew here from Arabia and brought his father's body, wrapped in myrrh, to the temple of Helios, where he buried it. He carried the body in the following way. First he formed an egg out of myrrh as large as he could carry it and tried to pick it up. When he tests it, he hollows out the egg and puts the father's corpse inside. He then glues the place where he hollowed out the egg and put the father in it with myrrh again, and the egg is now just as heavy as before. And now he takes it to Egypt to the temple of Helios. That’s how they tell about this bird.”