Saqqara Bird Saqqara Bird The Saqqara Bird is a bird-shaped artifact made of sycamore wood, discovered during the 1898 excavation of the Pa-di-Imen tomb in Saqqara, Egypt. It has been dated to approximately 200 BCE, and is now housed in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo. The Saqqara Bird has a wingspan of and weighs . Its function is not understood because of a lack of period documentation. 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
Saqqara Bird which he "suppose[d] was lost," and noted that the Egyptians often placed miniaturized representations of their technology in their tombs. Messiha contended 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 stabilizer which is unlike the generally horizontal shape of a real bird's tail. Richard P. Hallion described this fin as "shaped as if the bird had twisted its tail feathers." It is also legless and has wings set at an angle Messiha sees as similar to that of modern aircraft, which