[FEE-nix] A constellation representing the mythical bird that supposedly was reborn from its own ashes. It is the largest of the 12 constellations invented at the end of the 16th century by the Dutch navigators Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman.
The phoenix supposedly resembled a large eagle with scarlet, blue, purple, and gold plumage. Ovid in his Metamorphoses tells us that the phoenix lived for 500 years, eating the gum of incense and the sap of balsam. The death and rebirth of the phoenix has been seen as symbolizing the daily rising and setting of the Sun.
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