What that book title might also refer to

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 4431

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Amanda Lewanski <editor at t...> wrote:
> The Phoenix was supposed to be Persian, was it not? Or native to 
> someplace far to the East? JKR said book 5 would involve a new 
> locale, so perhaps it's the homeland of the Phoenix

In real life (tm), the phoenix originated in Egypt, where it was 
named bennu which means 'shining' or 'bright'. It was a solar  
creature and was reborn every 1470 solar years = 1471 calendar years 
(i.e. when the 365 day year, no leap year, came around to match the 
seasons again. Most nations don't keep track that long).

In real life (tm), the Greeks changed its name to Phoenix, which 
means reddish-purple, and might seem to a Greek to sound like 
'bennu'. Phoenicia (the coastal portion of modern Israel and Lebanon, 
where Canaanites remained after Israelites had conquered the rest of 
Canaan) has nothing to do with phoenixes, but is named reddish-purple 
for some other reason. A popular theory is that Phoenicia is named 
after the famous Tyrian purple dye (made from vast quantities of 
rotted, dead, ocean molluscs) that was one of the main things the 
Phoenicians got rich sellng all around the Mediterranean. They also 
changed the Phoenix to do its immolation thing every 500 years 
instead of every 1470-1471.

Egypt is where Bill works for Gringotts as a cursebreaker, whatever a 
cursebreaker does, and there used to be old rumors that one HP book 
would have sections in Egypt, perhaps related to Bill's job.