“Miniature glider”, Sakkara
Replica, true to the original

This strange artefact was found in 1898 in a grave in Sakkara, Egypt. It is a miniature version of a airplane-model. It was called “statuette of bird” and dated about 200 B.C. and kept in the Egypt Museum of antiquities, Cairo. Since 1919 the object was placed together with old Egypt bird-models. In 1969 Prof. Dr. Khalil Messiha (1924 –1998), Egyptian archaeologist and art historian, recognized that the object didt fi t the other birds. It does not have legs and feet, but straight wings and erected tail fin. Experts examined the antique fi nd. It contains features of flight-technique that only can be known after years of intensive experiments. Who was the genious constructer of this object, about 2200 years ago? On the artefact there is an inscription: “Pa-Di-Imen”. This is an old Egypt word meaning “present of Amun”. The god Amun was the master of the breath of air. According to legends he lived in symbiosis with the god of the sun named Re.