The phoenix bird symbolizes immortality, resurrection and life after death. In ancient Greek and Egyptian mythology, it is associated with the sun god. According to the Greeks, the bird lives in Arabia, near a cool well. Every morning at dawn, the sun god would stop his chariot to listen to the bird sing a beautiful song while it bathed in the well. Only one phoenix exists at a time. When the bird felt its death was near, every 500 to 1,461 years, it would build a nest of aromatic wood and set it on fire. The bird was then consumed by the flames. A new phoenix sprang forth from the pyre. It embalmed the ashes of its predecessor in an egg of myrrh and flew with it to Heliopolis, "City of the Sun," where the egg was deposited on the altar of the sun god. In Egypt, it was depicted as a heron, but in classic literature as a peacock or an eagle.