Saqqara Bird

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The Saqqara Bird is a bird-shaped artifact made of sycamore wood, discovered during the 1891 excavation of the Pa-di-Imen tomb in Saqqara, Egypt. It has been dated to approximately 200 BC and is now housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The Saqqara Bird has a wingspan of 7.2 inches and weighs 39.120 grams. It has a beak, holes for feathers, eyes, and was originally painted to resemble a falcon, with clear images and carvings to represent feathers on the wings.

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[edit] Artifact significance

The purpose of the Saqqara Bird is unknown, due to lack of period documentation, but there has been a great deal of speculation regarding the significance of the Saqqara Bird.

[edit] Conventional ideas

Some think the Saqqara Bird may be a ceremonial object because the falcon, the bird after which the Saqqara Bird is modeled, is the form most commonly used to represent several of the most important gods of Egyptian mythology, most notably Horus and Ra Horakhty. Others have posited it may have been a toy for an elite child, or that it could have functioned as a weather vane. Some have also speculated it may have been used as a sort of boomerang, as such technology was common and well-known in ancient Egypt in the form of a throwing stick used for hunting waterfowl.

[edit] Controversial claims

Some have suggested that the Saqqara Bird may represent compelling evidence for the theory that an understanding of the principles of aviation existed many centuries before such are generally believed to have first been discovered. The ancient Egyptians displayed an advanced understanding of many types of technology throughout their history, particularly in the fields of construction and seamanship, the latter of which shares many common principles with the science of aerodynamics. Some conclude from this correlation that because the ancient Egyptians had a complex understanding of seamanship, it is likely they also had at least a cursory understanding of aerodynamics and the aeronautical possibilities it presented.

Many feel that the dimensions and shape of the Saqqara Bird cause it to closely resemble a model airplane. Based on this, one Egyptologist, Khalil Messiha, has speculated that the ancient Egyptians developed the first aircraft[1]. Messiha, who was the first to argue that the Saqqara Bird was not simply a model of a bird, wrote in 1983 that it "represents a diminutive of an original monoplane still present in Saqqara"[1]. He also claimed that the Saqqara Bird could function as a glider if it had a horizontal tailplane, which he "suppose[d] was lost"[1], and that the fact that the Egyptians often placed miniaturized representations of their technology in their tombs[2] helped make his claim feasible.

To further back his claims, Dr. Messiha explained that the Saqqara Bird differs significantly from other statues and models of birds housed in the Cairo museum. According to Messiha, the Saqqara Bird has a vertical tailplane which is unlike the generally horizontal shape of a real bird's tail[1]. It is also legless and has wings set at an angle similar to that of modern aircraft, which might be considered an attempt to create aerodynamic lift[1].

Michael Frenchman likewise concluded that "The find is a scale model of a full-sized flying machine of some kind,"[citation needed] and according to the Augusta Chronicle, "A committee [of Egypt's Ministry of Culture] …concluded that the 7-inch-long model… seemed to incorporate principles of aircraft design that had taken modern engineers decades of experimentation to discover and perfect."[citation needed]

In spite of these various claims, however, no ancient Egyptian aircraft have ever been found, nor has any other evidence suggesting their existence come to light. As a result, the theory that the Saqqara Bird is a model of a flying machine is not accepted by mainstream Egyptologists and is generally regarded as pseudoarcheology.

[edit] Attempts to prove the claim

In an attempt to discover whether the claims of Messiha and others on the aerodynamic properties of the Saqqara Bird were correct, Martin Gregorie, a builder and designer of Free Flight gliders, built a replica of the Saqqara Bird made of balsa wood. After testing the replica, Martin Gregorie concluded that: "…the Saqqara Bird never flew. It is totally unstable without a tailplane…Even after a tailplane was fitted the glide performance was disappointing"[3]. He added that "the Saqqara Bird was probably made as a child's toy or a weather vane"[3].

According to Dawoud Khalil Messiha who is now continuing the work of Dr. Khalil Messiha, the conclusion of Gregorie that the Saqqara Bird might be a weather vane is not possible, due to the lack of markings or holes on the model that would serve as a means of hanging it.[citation needed] The one hole that presently exists on the bottom of the Saqqara Bird used to fix the model on a stick is a recent one and was made by museum officials[4]. However, the possibility that the significance of the Saqqara Bird is limited to the model being a child’s toy has not been ruled out by Dawoud Messiha.

Dr. Kahlil Messiha built a model of the Saqqara Bird to test for its aerodynamic efficiency. His model was six times larger than the dimensions of the original in an attempt to its proportional aerodynamic efficiency[5], and was given a horizontal tailplane to act as a stabilizer. With these significant modifications, Messiha was able to make his model fly[6].

[edit] See also

[edit] Further Reading

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e Messiha, Khalil et al (1991) “African Experimental aeronautics: A 2000-Year Old Model Glider” in Ivan Van Sertima (ed.) Blacks in Science. Op cit. pp. 92-99.
  2. ^ Ian Shaw and Paul T. Nicholson: “British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt”, British museum press, London, 1995
  3. ^ a b Gregorie, Martin. "Flying the Saqqara Bird", 2002. http://www.catchpenny.org/birdtest.html
  4. ^ Journal d' entrée number 6347, Catalogue of Artifacts, The Egyptian Museum.
  5. ^ A.C. Kermode: “ Flying Without Formula”, Sir Isaak pitman & Sons LTD, 3rd edition, London, 1960
  6. ^ Peter Fiebag, Algund Eenboom & Peter Belting: “Flugzeuge der Pharaonen, Jochen Kopp Verlag, Munchen, 2004, pp.22-24, 54