Vanished Persian Army Said Found in Desert

[Adsos Letter]

Source: DiscoveryNews, Rossella Lorenzi


Photo Credits: Alfredo and Angelo Castiglioni
Bones, jewelry and weapons found in Egyptian desert may be the remains of Cambyses' army that vanished 2,500 years ago.



The remains of a mighty Persian army said to have drowned in the sands of the western Egyptian desert 2,500 years ago might have been finally located, solving one of archaeology's biggest outstanding mysteries, according to Italian researchers.

Bronze weapons, a silver bracelet, an earring and hundreds of human bones found in the vast desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert have raised hopes of finally finding the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. The 50,000 warriors were said to be buried by a cataclysmic sandstorm in 525 B.C.

"We have found the first archaeological evidence of a story reported by the Greek historian Herodotus," Dario Del Bufalo, a member of the expedition from the University of Lecce, told Discovery News.

According to Herodotus (484-425 B.C.), Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, sent 50,000 soldiers from Thebes to attack the Oasis of Siwa and destroy the oracle at the Temple of Amun after the priests there refused to legitimize his claim to Egypt.

http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/cambyses-army-remains-sahara.html

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A video and slide show are both available at the link. This is quite a cool story, and the evidence is very compelling.

[Ian David]

1. This is what happens when men refuse to stop and ask for directions. n/t

[Adsos Letter]

9. DUZY!!

:spray: :rofl:

[Greybnk48]

14. Duzy for sure!

[Xithras]

28. To be fair, they had directions, but the directions were wrong.

Their map was off. They marched out into the middle of the desert where a town (and water) was supposed to be, and found nothing but sand. According to Herodotus, the map was drawn incorrectly.

[MadMaddie]

32. Sooo wrong on so many levels but so true...!!

:rofl:

[saltpoint]

37. ------

:thumbsup: :hi:

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Fascinating

[Adsos Letter]

21. Indeed; the ancient past of stories and legends physically emerges from time to time...

to remind us of the reality of another time.

[harun]

3. Wow, that oracle must have been a bad ass to be able to summon

the desert to take out 50K troops.

[TCJ70]

12. That's what I was thinking...

...don't mess with Amun or its oracles...

[Adsos Letter]

15. Especially when it involves a hike in the Sahara...

[roguevalley]

34. blood thinned after Cyrus. He was a great man, Our Cyrus, one of

the few mentioned in the old testament by the Jews, thusly named.

[The Magistrate]

4. It Has Never Been Safe To Doubt Herodotus, Sir

Fascinating stuff: Thank you for sharing it.

[Adsos Letter]

11. Well Sir, the Ancients may have had different conceptions of what constituted History...

(although Herodotus is generally referred to as "the Father of" in college historiography courses) there is valuable insight to be gained from most of them, if one understands how they approached things.

And you are welcome, Sir! (for the sharing, I mean).

[The Magistrate]

16. That Is Very True, Sir

Generally, the ancients of Greece and Rome viewed history as an instructive moral tale, and certainly did not scruple to write what they thought it would have been proper and edifying for men to have said, or to concoct incidents that would aptly illustrate a theme. Herodotus produced something different, an attempt to compile what the world around him actually was like, and to set down the stories of their past people actually told. This he did with commendable accuracy, and we are hugely indebted to him for it.

[Adsos Letter]

18. Indeed we are, Sir...the beginning of a structured Historical Method.

The Historians who sat about to create a history for our United States in the period of the early eighteenth-century often added a strong dose of the "Greek/Roman" method as we structured a national mythos for ourselves.

Always a pleasure to have you weigh in on one of my threads!

[Posteritatis]

27. I kinda wish he was right on the ant thing, though. (nt)

[msongs]

5. sounds like our president's endless war in Afghanistan-nam nt

[ecstatic]

22. How so?

Or did you just link two completely unrelated things together?

[roguevalley]

35. Give it another ten years. :-D

[PVnRT]

6. The headline makes it sound as if they were alive

If so, holy shit, we should just surrender now.

[ecstatic]

23. a real live Mummy story in the making... nt

[eppur_se_muova]

26. I always react the same way to "new dinosaur discovered" headlines.

I have a real Calvin&Hobbes letdown when I realize it's just the FOSSIL REMAINS of a dinosaur.

[malaise]

7. Rec

Fabulous find

[KatyMan]

8. Great novel from 2002 on this

Well, not this search specifically, but the search for Cambyses' Army,

The Lost Army of Cambyses by Paul Sussman

[Adsos Letter]

17. That looks like an interesting read; thankyou for that link to what looks like an interesting site.

:hi:

[KatyMan]

24. Your welcome

It's a good book, as is his first book. Haven't read the Hidden Oasis one yet, but I enjoy Sussman's writing. It's nice to read a crime novel set in such an exotic locale, as it goes a long way toward helping one understand foreign (ie, non US/Anglo) cultures, especially Middle Eastern ones that you only tend to see in a negative aspect in fiction and other entertainment.

[Adsos Letter]

25. I agree; I think one of the things that hobbles the majority of our population...

is the failure to understand other cultures on their own terms, including those subcultures that exist right here at home.

[formercia]

10. That's a lot of back pay and per diem. n/t

[Adsos Letter]

13. Don't forget survivors benefits (calculated over the intervening centuries)...

somebody's descendants are due some large checks from the Iranian government... :D

[kentuck]

19. k & R

fascinating!

[Adsos Letter]

20. Notice how absolutely clean and white those bones look...

polished by centuries of being covered-uncovered-recovered in the sand, I suppose.

[roguevalley]

36. pre sugar teeth too, pearlie whites. what an awful way to die. in

China, in the deserts, they find zillions of dinosaurs that died that way. Drowned in sand.

[Adsos Letter]

39. It always amazes me, as someone with a fairly extensive education in History,...

to come face-to-face with the reality which Historians often only read about, especially in cases like this one.

Causes a real shift in the ol' cognition.

Glad you enjoyed the article! :D :hi:

[intheflow]

29. Wow, this is a very interesting discovery!

You'd think the centuries' worth of blowing sand would have buried the bones ever-deeper, so that only an earthquake would have been able to uncover them. But you'd have been wrong!

(And of course by "you" I mean "I". :P)

[Adsos Letter]

31. Hey!

:hi: :hug: :D

[Blue_Tires]

30. creepy...

those poor soldiers...

[Adsos Letter]

33. Kick for the night crew...'cause it's an interesting discovery.

[tomm2thumbs]

38. interesting - thnx K&R