411 REFERENCE · Wiktionary
Bennu
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bennu
English
right|thumb|Bennu as depicted in 1895, E. A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Dead
thumb|Asteroid Bennu photographed by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in 2018
Etymology
en egy bnw. en phoenix.
Proper noun
en Egyptian god often with "the" A self-created deity with the form of a bird (in New Kingdom artwork, a heron) that features in the ancient Egyptian creation myth and is also described as the ba (soul) of Ra.
1830, "E. H.", Fragments on Egyptian Literature, Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and the Arts, Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, page 349,
One compound name, of which it is an element, is that of the city, from which the Sebennytic mouth of the Nile was denominated Sebennu, that is, "the temple of Bennu," a god, who was represented in the form of a waterfowl, and whose phonetic name is of frequent occurrence.
2014, J. Daniel Gunther, The Angel & The Abyss, Nicolas-Hays, Inc. (Ibis Press), page 113,
15 The Uas Sceptre is the origin of the “Phoenix Wand”, which is the Wand of the Imperator of . The head of the wand was not originally a Bennu Bird, but the head of the god Set. The identification with the Bennu seems to have originated with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
en astronomy The near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu.
en Kenneth Chang NASA’s Osiris-Rex Arrives at Asteroid Bennu After a Two-Year Journey w:The New York Times 2018-12-03 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/science/osiris-rex-bennu-asteroid-arrival.html 0362-4331 Osiris-Rex’s arrival at Bennu was not like the landing of NASA’s InSight spacecraft in one piece on the surface of Mars last Monday. (Happily, it landed flawlessly.) https://web.archive.org/web/20251028142553/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/science/osiris-rex-bennu-asteroid-arrival.html 28 October 2025
en Ashley Strickland Historic asteroid sample reveals the ‘building blocks of life are in fact extraterrestrial in origin,’ scientists say w:CNN https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/29/science/asteroid-bennu-building-blocks-of-life 2025-01-29 McCoy’s team, including 66 researchers across four continents, found the salt and minerals left behind as water on Bennu, or its larger parent asteroid, evaporated. The minerals include sodium phosphates, carbonates, sulfates, chlorides and fluorides, some of which are necessary to the formation of life. https://web.archive.org/web/20260401124949/https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/29/science/asteroid-bennu-building-blocks-of-life 1 April 2026
Usage notes
The bird is sometimes identified as the phoenix.
Classical thinking linked the phoenix of Greek mythology to an Egyptian mythological origin; this idea was reinforced by the 19th century discovery that the Bennu had been venerated in Heliopolis. Modern scholars, however, consider the Egyptian sources problematic and are sceptical about the direction of the influence.
Derived terms
en Bennu bird the bird aspect of the deity; the indefinite corresponding real bird
en Bennu heron Ardea bennuides species; see Ardea_bennuides†
Related terms
astronomy OSIRIS-REx
Translations
Egyptian deity
Egyptian: bnw b-n:nw*w-G31
Italian: it Benu m, it Bennu m
Marathi: mr बेन्नू m
Polish: pl Benu m
asteroid
Polish: pl Bennu f
Further reading
Bennu
Nephthys#Chief goddess of Nome VII Nephthys § Chief goddess of Nome VII
101955 Bennu
Turkish
Pronunciation
tr Ben nu
Proper noun
tr female
Bennu Yıldırımlar Bennu Yıldırımlar