Hicham Maged's blog Inquisitive curiosity paves knowledge path

Egypt under Cambyses II

I will take you in a short visit to our past in this blog entry. When I was studying our history in school, I knew about the story of the Persian emperor Cambyses II who invaded Egypt after defeating Pharao Psamtik III, the last Egyptian ruler of the “26th Dynasty (664-525 BC)” and thus he became the first ruler of the “27th Persian Dynasty” in our history and Egypt became part of the “Achaemenid (Persian) Empire.”

Egypt under Cambyses II

This story has a mysterious part; Cambyses II wanted to legitimize his claims for ruling Egypt by sending an army of 50,000 soldiers to take-over “The Temple of the Oracle [or Temple of Amun (Arabic: معبد آمون)]” located at “Siwa Oasis (Arabic: واحة سيوة)” but they were overtaken by a sandstorm and buried in Egypt’s Western Desert with their weapons and equipments. Since then, this story has been labeled as The Lost Army of Cambyses II and became one of the myths in the field of Archaeology.

Back to the future during the past 20^th century, many archaeological trials were set to find evidences for this story which was narrated by the Greek Historian Herodotus (484-425 BC); however either they found nothing or were just hoax. In the current 21^st century, trials also were set by geologists from Helwan University in Egypt but nothing was announced as founding this lost army. Last but not least, who knows, an Italian archaeologists team announced this month about finding evidences of this lost army according to an article from Discovery News.

Hereby I pause a little bit: I am neither historian nor archaeologist; however I am wondering why this was announced by a presentation during the “Archaeological Film Festival of Rovereto” in Italy?! In other words, my question is simply: why did not we hear about this in Egypt from corresponding officials represented in our Egyptian Archaeologists? I am looking forward to hearing an announcement either to confirm or deny. Hence, only time shall reveal the truth about this discovery; however in case it is true, I think this shall be another great step for enriching both Egyptian History and Egyptian Archeology about this far period.

Note: The mentioned article contains also video and images of these claims.

Resources on Egypt under Cambyses II Story

• Vanished Army on Discovery News
• Cambyses II from Tour Egypt

Related Quotes and Sayings

To excavate is to open a book written in the language that the centuries have spoken into the earth. — Spyridon Marinatos

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Tags: archaeology, egypt
Categories: Tech
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