Wings in the Tomb of Pa-di-Imen

Saqqara, Egypt, 1898 — from a tomb sealed around 200 BC comes a small sycamore-wood bird. Except the wings aren't a bird's. They're straight, airfoil-shaped, dihedral — the cross-section of a glider. In 1969 Dr. Khalil Messiha argued that with its missing tailplane restored, the 39-gram model would ……