Phoenix derived from Phoenicians
Hate to put the damper on those speculations, but the etymology of the word phoenix is as follows:
Middle English fenix, from Old English, from Old French both from Medieval Latin fnix, from Latin phoenix, from Greek phoinix.
The English word Phoenician is derived from the latin word Punic (as in the Punic wars). The Phoenicians didn't call themselves Phoenicians, they were Canaanites, though
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The Phoenicians were probably Semitic -- neither Europeans nor Africans Before going into the long and, sometimes, controversial origin of the Phoenicians, two things musts be made clear. The Phoenicians do not have their origin in Europe or in Africa. They were neither European nor where they black Africans. Their origin is probably Semitic though some references trace them back to as far away as India about 10,000 BC. Further, the Phoenician colonies which spread all over the coastline of the Mediterranean and even the Atlantic coasts were inhabited by Phoenician Semitic immigrants. No one can claim that the Phoenicians of North Africa were black or the Phoenicians of Spain, Gibraltar, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta...etc. were European. Statues, bursts, and artwork of the Phoenicians are found all over this website and upon close observation one can clearly see how closely they resemble the inhabitants of the shores of present day Mediterranean. (Note the images of the young Phoenician man and woman below). There are some who use the Bible for genealogical reference and actually believe Biblical characters such as Noah, Shem, Ham...etc. really existed and thereafter the Semites came from Shem and the Hamites from Ham...etc. These claims are categorically rejected and have no basis in purely scientific genealogical studies of ethnic origins and races. The Bible is about religion and many parts of the Old Testament should be looked at in that light. The Bible should not be taken as literally true. It is mostly mythological yet didactic
" Their origin is probably Semitic though some references trace them back to as far away as India about 10,000 BC."Makes sense to me as I'm beginning to think they (people with the red-headed gene) dispersed from Sundaland (or that region) in southeast Asia at the end of the Ice Age.
Stephen Oppenheimer (Eden In The East) believes the original Sumerians and Egyptians were refugees from the sunken Sundaland.