A wooden carving dating from the 3rd century B.C. was found in a tomb in Sakkara (also spelled Saqqara), Egypt, in 1898. It was classified as a bird figure and placed with other bird carvings at the Cairo Museum, until Dr. Khalil Messiha, a medical doctor and Egyptologist, saw it in 1969 and realized it looked like the model airplanes he made as a child.