Egyptian funerary religion
Bennu
Tirard identifies the Bennu with a heron representing Ra. Her account sets it beside the hawk of Horus and discusses divine bird forms without treating each animal as a fixed label for only one god. The soul can also assume the Bennu’s form among its permitted transformations. Tirard reports Renouf’s rejection of a straightforward identification with the phoenix that appears every five hundred years.
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In the sources
Principal account
TraditionalTirard identifies the Bennu with a heron representing Ra. Her account sets it beside the hawk of Horus and discusses divine bird forms without treating each animal as a fixed label for only one god.
Further detail
TraditionalThe soul can also assume the Bennu’s form among its permitted transformations. Tirard reports Renouf’s rejection of a straightforward identification with the phoenix that appears every five hundred years.
Context & interpretation
Tirard’s 1910 account interprets selected funerary texts and rituals through the scholarship of her period. Local cults and surviving manuscripts vary; her comparisons and proposed origins are not a modern Egyptological consensus.
Original passages
Source 1
The Book of the Dead
In the Book of the Dead the Bennu, or heron, and the hawk represent the Sun-gods Ra and Horus. Pap. of Aniy Brit. Mus.Open this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Egyptian funerary religion; active reader leaf 118
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0039-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0039-E001-P0118
- Original scan leaf
- 128
- Recorded leaf number
- 118
- Current Reader position
- 111
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
- Location review
- Original scan location confirmed against the reviewed Reader mapping; the earlier recorded number is retained above.
Source 2
The Book of the Dead
his glory and honour. The hawk, the Bennu or heron, the swallow or dove, the crocodile, the serpent and the lotus, were all formsOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Egyptian funerary religion; active reader leaf 84
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0039-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0039-E001-P0084
- Original scan leaf
- 94
- Recorded leaf number
- 84
- Current Reader position
- 78
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
- Location review
- Original scan location confirmed against the reviewed Reader mapping; the earlier recorded number is retained above.