Evolution of an Image:
The Saqqara Bird

Below are Khalil Messiha's drawings of the bird model found in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (from Messiha, Khalil, Guirguis Messiha, Gamal Mokhtar, and Michael Frenchman. "African Experimental Aeronautics: A 2,000-Year-Old Model Glider" in Van Sertima, ed. Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern, 1983, pp. 93, 95):

© Copyright Khalil Messiha

© Copyright Khalil Messiha

Lumir G. Janku based his rendition on Messiha's drawing, adding the hypothetical tailplane:

© Copyright Lumir G. Janku

Thereafter, the tailplane passed from the theoretical to the factual:

The "restored" tailplane has now been included in representations of the bird model, thus rendering it more plane-like:

Catchpenny Mysteries © copyright 2001 by Larry Orcutt.