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The article examines the origin of the trope of the crocodile bird in Egyptian culture and its dissemination in classical, Islamic, and Jewish traditions. It discusses whether the crocodile bird actually existed and which bird species could be identified with it. The text describes various versions of a story about the friendship between a crocodile and a bird that was widespread in ancient literature. It also points out that the trochilus may be mentioned in Byzantine poetry and in Horapollo's treatise on hieroglyphs. However, there is no clear evidence for the depiction of the trochilus in visual art. The article describes the origin and dissemination of the trochilus trope, a narrative about a bird that cleans the teeth of a crocodile. The story originated in ancient Egypt and was passed down in various cultures, including Greek, Roman, Islamic, and Jewish traditions. [Extracted from the article]

This article investigates the relation between Vasilii Rozanov's myth of Egypt and Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of carnival. It considers the first as an instance of religious art and the last as a case of transformation of religion into art. While Rozanov replaces Christian orthodox religion by a largely invented pseudo-Egyptian belief, which is grounded on a more or less free interpretation of reproductions of old artifacts from the Nile region, Bakhtin replaces in his book on Rabelais religion by an artistic project, which in the tradition of the concept of 'Third Renaissance' proclaims the development of a culture, which realizes human(ic) possibilities, rooted in antiquity but not (completely) carried out in them. Rozanovs aims at the integrative specialty of Russian culture, inherent to (his) neo-slavophile way of 'serious' thinking and thus excludes it from other cultures, whereas Bakhtin includes the possible coming culture into a European tradition, which renovates itself by perennially going back to its roots of laughter and ambivalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]