Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



In his " Famous Islands " old Tommaso 

 Porcacchi tells of the island of Crete that there 

 are birds on it called caristi, which fly through 

 the fire without being at all harmed — senza 

 punto essere oflfesi volavano sopra la fiamma 

 del fuoco. Perhaps it is a reminiscence of the 

 phoenix that belonged especially to Arabia, 

 Egypt and Palestine. In the oldest tombs 

 discovered lately on the Upper Nile by Jacques 

 de Morgan and others the phoenix is seen ris- 

 ing from a bed of flames which may well mean 

 the funeral pyre of the defunct. The inscrip- 

 tions in question are so early that they belong 

 to the period when the ceremonial of the 

 mummy had not become universal in Egypt 

 and the conquerors of Egypt, probably a 

 swarm of metal-using foreigners from the val- 

 ley of the Euphrates who crossed Arabia and 

 the Red Sea, were still burning the bodies 

 of their chiefs and kings. The phoenix of 

 these inscriptions may indicate the soul of 

 the departed rising from its earthly dross, as 



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