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The Phoenix symbolizes rebirth, especially of the sun, and has
variants in European, Central American, Egyptian and Asian cultures. In the nineteenth century Hans Christian Anderson wrote
a story about the phoenix. Edith Nesbit used a phoenix in one of her children's stories, as does J.K. Rowling. The most popular
variant has the bird living in Arabia for 500 years at the end of which it burns itself and
its nest, which, in the version of the ante-Nicene father Clement, is made of frankincense, myrrh and other spices. A new
phoenix always rises from the ashes. Ancient sources on the mythological bird, besides Clement, are Ovid, Pliny, Tacitus and
Herodotus.
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