In April 1988 the Swiss club owner Gregor Spörri traveled to Egypt armed with a number of books recommended by a friend to learn about the ancient Egyptian culture. It was a journey that would change his life forever.

During this trip to Egypt, Spörri was often found in the Great Pyramid where he wanted to find out whether there was any bio cosmic energy inside it. To achieve his goal, he crawled through shafts, bribed overseers, and spent endless hours in various sarcophagi waiting for evidence of a power supply. In vain. Spörri believed that if you put a bottle filled with water on top of the Great Pyramid it would explode because of the cosmic energy. He performed the experiment but sadly nothing happened.

Gregor Spörri, a Swiss club owner, journeyed to Egypt equipped with recommended books to delve into the rich tapestry of ancient Egyptian culture. (Courtesy of ©Gregor Sporri)

Spörri’s journey was almost over when the bartender of the hotel where he was staying told him that he knew of an interesting excursion for him (the bartender had been watching him and noticed he was interested in extraordinary cases). Spörri was curious and decided to make the excursion. On the second-last day of his holiday, early in the morning, a taxi picked him up to take him to his destination. The bartender showed the driver a crumpled note with the address and the journey began.

Nagib’s Secret Legacy: The Unearthed Relic of Bir Hooker

The journey was a 2 hour ride to the district Bir Hooker, a place near Sadat City, located about 100 km northwest of Cairo. They stopped at a farm where Spörri met an elderly farmer named Nagib. Nagib is a descendant of an ancient family of grave robbers. From a legacy of his ancestors, Nagib inherited two wooden boxes full of valuables that provided him a good income over the years. The stolen treasures were sold to Western tourists and the proceeds bought Nagib land. However, there was one item he never sold which had been in the possession of his family for 150 years. Only a few people had ever seen this object.

Nagib was in financial difficulty so he proposed that Spörri could see this particular object, photograph it and hold it for a fee of $300. Spörri sat on a wooden bench as Nagib pulled out a wooden box and lifted the lid. As a musty smell rose in the air, he took out an elongated packet, wrapped in a leather cloth with lace around it. Underneath the leather cloth, old rags were wrapped around a strange looking object. When Nagib unwrapped the package, a gray-brown oblong object emerged. He laid the object carefully in the hands of Spörri who examined the object with curiosity. He suddenly realized he was holding a gigantic mummified finger.

A Polaroid photo of the finger and an X-ray made in the 1960s (Courtesy of ©Gregor Sporri)

It was not an ordinary finger as it measured at least 35 centimeters (13.77 in) long and was about 6 centimeters (2.36 in) thick. Spörri examined the finger in detail and was able to determine that what he was holding was old, organic and humanoid. The finger looked like it had been cut off with anatomical precision, and in some places was crumbled. The leathery skin was ripped in places and the skin was a few millimeters thick. Between the dried skinfolds he could see remains of fungus and the nail was loose. The surface of the skin was damaged in some places, as if mice had gnawed on it. The bone felt woody. 

Spörri was dumbfounded as the abnormal size of the finger would have meant that its owner must have reached at least 5 or 6 meters (16.40 or 19.68 ft) in height. His skepticism led Nagib to show him another item contained within the wooden box – a leather file folder containing a number of documents. Inside the folder was a certificate of authenticity, some papers with Arabic and Latin letters, a Polaroid photo of the finger and an X-ray made in the 60s. The farmer’s son had some research done through a friend in the hospital of Cairo. When Spörri compared the finger to the x-ray he could see that the proportions and shape were correct and that the x-ray was of the finger he was holding.