Talk:Saqqara Bird

Egypt Mid‑importance

	Egypt portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Egypt, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Egypt on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EgyptWikipedia:WikiProject EgyptTemplate:WikiProject EgyptEgypt articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Paranormal

	This article falls under the scope of WikiProject Paranormal, which aims to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to the paranormal and related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the attached article, help with current tasks, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and discussions.ParanormalWikipedia:WikiProject ParanormalTemplate:WikiProject Paranormalparanormal articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Skepticism Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Ancient Egypt Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ancient Egypt, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Egyptological subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Ancient EgyptWikipedia:WikiProject Ancient EgyptTemplate:WikiProject Ancient EgyptAncient Egypt articles

Low

This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

WikiProject Ancient Egypt to-do list:

Needed articles.

We should have an article on every pyramid and every nome in Ancient Egypt. I'm sure the rest of us can think of other articles we should have.

Cleanup.

To start with, most of the general history articles badly need attention. And I'm told that at least some of the dynasty articles need work. Any other candidates?

Standardize the Chronology.

A boring task, but the benefit of doing it is that you can set the dates !(e.g., why say Khufu lived 2589-2566? As long as you keep the length of his reign correct, or cite a respected source, you can date it 2590-2567 or 2585-2563)

Stub sorting

Anyone? I consider this probably the most unimportant of tasks on Wikipedia, but if you believe it needs to be done . . .

Data sorting.

This is a project I'd like to take on some day, & could be applied to more of Wikipedia than just Ancient Egypt. Take one of the standard authorities of history or culture -- Herotodus, the Elder Pliny, the writings of Breasted or Kenneth Kitchen, & see if you can't smoothly merge quotations or information into relevant articles. Probably a good exercise for someone who owns one of those impressive texts, yet can't get access to a research library.

Archaeology Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Archaeology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Archaeology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchaeologyWikipedia:WikiProject ArchaeologyTemplate:WikiProject ArchaeologyArchaeology articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

A fact from Saqqara Bird appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 September 2006. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Saqqara Bird, an Egyptian artifact dating to at least 200 B.C.E., has led some scholars to speculate whether the Ptolemaic Egyptians possessed rudimentary airplane technology?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2006/September.

Wikipedia

B.C.E.?

B.C.E. or BCE was a new one to me. I find it means same as BC. Should that be Wiki's standard style and the one used here?--Tony in Devon 14:36, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's allowed in Wikipedia (since it's quite common in scholarly writing) -- see the Wikpedia style manual. AnonMoos 19:51, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks. I have searched but can't find - can you say where specifically in the manual and I (and anyone interested) can look at all the similar refs. Thanks.--Tony in Devon 11:02, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

The figure appears to be a composite of a bird and fish tail. Perhaps the intent was to express the concept that water and air are fluids. Alternatively the tail may be a bracket that fits in a slot to mount the figure on a pole or wall for example.Rockie1624 (talk)

This theory about the thing being an aircraft reminds me of the Orkney Satanic Panic, where a child's primitive model aircraft was wilfully misinterpreted as a crucifix by social workers determined to find evidence of what they had decided to find. Then again, perhaps the Egyptians saw the planes flying over from Nasca.... The Real Walrus 14:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interestingly, they just had a segment of a show on History Channel in the USA called Ancient Discoveries, which focussed on this bird, and a group of scientists and engineers trying to determine if an airplane-sized version of it could have flown. They built a larger miniature, based precisely on the original, and put it in a wind tunnel... then put a computer-simulated version into a flight-sim, apparently one that simulated how the air would have played over it, and had a guy attempt to fly it like a glider... and it immediately spun out of control and spiraled towards the ground. They then looked at the original model, and noticed evidence something had originally been attached at the top of the tail of the bird, so they added a second, much shorter wing-segment across the back of the tail, and fed that design into the flight-sim system, and repeated the earlier attempt at flying the thing. This time, it "flew like a dream" and was very easy to pilot. I see from the article here that someone else in the 1980s tried adding a tailplane but determined that the bird's "glide performance was disappointing...." Makes you wonder if he had the tailplane shaped or mounted wrong... :-D

This episode, BTW, was originally broadcast on January 30th, 2007, at 9pm ET, and was repeated February 6th, 2007 at 8pm, just before their next episode. ---Nomad Of Norad 02:56, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: I see from the linked-to Martin Gregorie page that Martin had the tailplane attached a little bit farther back on the end of the tail section -- basically halfway off the end of it -- while the guys on Ancient Discoveries had it a little farther forward of that, so that the front of the tailplane came to the start of the raised-up-most part of the end of the tail section, and ended exactly with the back of that raised-up section. Evidently that must have made a difference. ---Nomad Of Norad 03:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Ancient Discoveries page at history.com is here: http://www.history.com/minisites/ancientdiscoveries The episode with the Saqqara Bird, BTW, is "Cars and Planes." They devote about 10 minutes of the episode to the bird, at the end of the episode. (I am watching it yet again as I type this.) The man running the study of the bird is Simon Sanderson, a celebrated glider pilot and aereonautics engineer. Then there is programmer Ben Lawrence, at Liverpool University, programming and running the flightsim system. It should be possible to track down more information based on those names. ---Nomad Of Norad 06:01, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

unnecessary dumb think stressed on main page link to this article

Stressing on the September 13, 2006 main page of notation from this article -- about the interpretation that the ancient Egyptians had aeroplanes because of the artifact -- makes Wikipedia look quite foolish... if one reads the article and digs in the links to this article, the most respected scientific interpretations of this falcon artifact, perhaps a boomerang, are http://www.catchpenny.org/Mercado.html and http://www.catchpenny.org/birdtest.html. The artifact is worthy of note without the sensationalistic hook.

The artifact has a beak, holes for feathers, eyes, and was painted to resemble a falcon with clear images and carving of feathers on the wings. The technology of a boomerang is not unusual among Paleolithic cultures, much less Neolithic and historical epochs. The falcon is the icon of one of the most important gods in Egyptian mythology.

Let’s be the best we can be… ---- kb – 2006.9.13

Pic needed

This article really needs some kind of illustration... AnonMoos 19:51, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History channel

Removed random bullet point about the history channel program; I think that the tailplane has been adequetely inserted elsewhere and I don't think the history channel blurb adds anything to the article, given it was nothing novel and was out of place. IF someone does want it in the article, please insert it inline into the appropriate paragraph rather than tacking it on the end. Titanium Dragon (talk) 12:31, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Article Overhaul

Significantly altered and re-wrote entire article for clarity, consistency, style, and objectivity. Also fixed citations for more consistent use throughout, and deleted citations that were repeated or not actually citations of a source. Re-organized article to use hierarchical organization scheme, and changed the list of sources that were not actually used to cite the article to a "Further Reading" section. Likewise added "pseudoarchaeology" and "experimental archaeology" to the "See Also" section, and fixed a few internal links. Tried to clear up the very confusingly written references to the two different Messihas, hopefully I was successful. I've also added the "more cites needed" bar. Hopefully somebody can remember where they got these facts from! Kudos, y'all. Zhukora (talk) 23:32, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have submitted overhauled article for a rating reassessment, hopefully we'll get a B this time. :) Zhukora (talk) 00:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, looking back at some of the much earlier edits, it appears that the article used to describe the artifact as resembling a bird in the positive, i.e.: it had a beak, eyes, holes for feathers, it DID have distinct painted/carved markings of feathers on the wings, etc. It appears this sentence has subsequently been changed to the negative, i.e.: beak, ONE eye, NO holes for feathers, NO painted/carved markings of feathers on the wings. Any idea which of these is correct? There is no citation for either description. I will go back and edit if need be. Zhukora (talk) 00:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted that sentence back to its prior, "positive" version because that was the definitive description for the majority of the life of the article, and no rationale or source was cited in support of the change. PLEASE cite a definitive source if you wish to change it back again, otherwise I will revert once more. Zhukora (talk) 03:58, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, they are negative now (Sep 2008). The whole article is short on citations and long on weasel words. I read a lot about this artifact a while back, and I personally subscribe to the notion that it was a toy that was intended to fly (whether a model of a bird or a glider, I don't know). Does anybody have RS for the statements in this article?LowKey (talk) 02:36, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested re-write: 'Sanderson then subjected it with the data from wind tunnel and added a stabilizing tailplane to a flight simulator . . .' as Sanderson then subjected it, with the data from the wind tunnel and an added stablizing tailplane. to a flight simulator . . .' Pamour (talk) 11:10, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"See also" entries

Dougweller just reinstated my deletion of "See also" entries for Pseudoarchaeology and Out-of-place artifact, saying "they are correct and useful to readers". I don't think it's very important, but

For "Pseudoarchaeology" I think the word "useful" asks precisely the right question. In what way is the cross-reference useful? The article gives a reasonable account of the bird. What more do I gain by looking at "Pseudoarchaeology"?
For "Out-of-place artifact" the same question arises, but furthermore, it isn't even "correct" either. The bird is a harmless model, completely at ease in the time and place in which it was discovered. It's not "out of place" at all; there's nothing intrinsically improbable about it. The speculations which have arisen don't make the bird itself "out of place". It's not in the same category as for example, stones carved with runes found in America, where the object itself is problematic. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 12:15, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I take your point, and see you've removed it from the articles matching the categories. It is still in Ancient astronauts. I always have a hard time with 'out of place' - the problem is that fringe writers use the phrase to include many things that are clearlyh not out of place. I do have a problem with it being in the experimental archaeology category without also being in the pseudoarchaeology category as that could be seen as taken it seriously as a possible early airplane of some sort. dougweller (talk) 14:28, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the "Saqqara Bird" artefact... Is it not possible (indeed far more likely) that it was simply an artistic representation of an ancient seafarer's description of "FLYING FISH" ? This would explain why the wings are like fins & the tail is vertical. If a seafarer described such a fish to an artist - that soared like a bird - an [landlubber] artist might well carve it with the head resembling a bird that soars (such as a falcon). Anthony Morgan-Jones (anthonymorganjones@hotmail.com) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.204.235 (talk) 01:53, 6 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Source

[1] Doug Weller talk 16:17, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Issues with source and the opening paragraph

It seems to be an issue with the reference of:

Messiha, Hishmat (1973). "[Saqqara Bird]". Egypt Travel Magazine. Cairo: Ministry of Tourism, Dept. of Publicity (153). ISSN 0013-2381. OCLC 1567664.

I've tried to track this issue down but there's a big problem. Issue 153 was published in 1969 and not in 1973. This feels as a red flag and I think we should rewrite the whole first paragraph.

I pulled the following info from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo RCMD Department: "JE 33109, SR 4/ 6347, Painted Wooden Soaring Bird Statue, Excavated by V. Loret in 1899, Memphite Region, Saqqara, Ptolemaic, Length: 18cm, Wood."

It is not much but it's what we seems to have about the bird. I've not been able to find any reference toward Pa-Di-Imun except for here. We should change the date to a more general Ptolemic era as is for now Uikikr (talk) 13:31, 15 March 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uikikr (talk • contribs) 13:21, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can add that nothing about Pa-Di-Imen is mentioned in V Lorets journal from this time "Loret, V. (1899). Fouilles dans la nécropole memphite <1897-1899>. Le Caire: Imprimerie Nationale.". He does mention several graves in Memphite Saqqara but no bird statues. He does talk about finding thousands of objects so might be a case that this find didn't top his list. But from this I'd argue that we should re-write the first section to reflect the current understanding. I'll give it some time before making any changes to the article.

If anyone have the source mentioned above, try to help out if you can. This might confirm things that I've not been able to. Uikikr (talk) 21:26, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

‌ Uikikr (talk) 21:26, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fringe or fantasy?

It is known that the mounting pole runs right through the body and secures the wing. Pull out the pole and the wing falls off! No way could this have ever been intended for free flight, it has always been on a stick. Should we really dignify such claims as "fringe"? Or should this section have a stronger title, such as "False claims" or "Pseudoscience" or something like that? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:30, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Categories