This is kind of off-topic but why is it difficult for you to believe that anybody could have come up with flying machines before the Wright brothers?
I don't personally see where I stated or implied such a thing. However, is there any evidential reason to actually assume that the stories told by ancient people are factual? My example shows that not only did they make mention of flying things, but that a kid who had his head chopped off had it replaced with an elephants head and was walking around as if nothing happened.
So where do we draw the line? One sentence might sound like it has some basis in reality, but given all the clear and utter nonsense, why should that be taken as a literal truth?
It's worth looking at the human mind. Is the human mind, (even an ancient one), incapable of imagining flying machines? If they had horse drawn carts for example, and had seen birds flying through the air, what is to stop their imaginations from conjuring up images of flying people, or people on flying carts - or, to look at the arab world - people on flying carpets?
You don't need to work for aerospace to imagine things having the ability to fly, and those flying things don't need to exist for you to write about them.
Time machines don't exist, and yet Jules Verne did a nice enough job writing about them.
Terminators don't exist, and yet Cameron did a good enough job of creating a visual story.
What we need to establish is why anyone would instantly take these old stories as factual. Find me a jumbo jet that dates back to 1 AD and we can proceed.
I guess some people here have a really low opinion of the human ability to daydream and imagine. They mentioned flying machines so they
must have existed! There's no possible way whatsoever that these people could have made it up.
Please.