Mystery Surrounding the Lost Persian Army Finally Solved

Researchers have solved one of the greatest archaeological mysteries surrounding the sudden disappearance of the Persian Army around 524 BC.

The long quest to dig out the reason behind the disappearance of a troop of 50,000 Persian soldiers in the Egyptian desert around 524 BC has ended. 

They were not swallowed up by a sandstorm as ancient historians would like us to believe but very likely defeated by a rebel army and to cover up the ignominious defeat, subsequent rulers supported the fable of a great sandstorm swallowing an army, according to an Egyptologist Olaf Kaper, professor at Leiden University

The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that the entire troop was swallowed by a sand storm. He narrates the story of the Persian King Cambyses who entered the Egyptian desert near Luxor with 50,000 men, to never be seen again.

Olaf Kaper says, "Since the 19^th century, people have been looking for this army: amateurs, but also professional archaeologists. Some expect to find somewhere under the ground an entire army, fully equipped. However, experience has long shown that you cannot die from a sand storm, let alone have an entire army disappear."

The Egyptologist argues that the legendary 50,000 strong army just didn't disappear in the cataclysmic sandstorm but was defeated.

His research suggests that the army was proceeding to the Dachla Oasis in the desert, where the Egyptian rebel leader Petubastis III was waiting with his troops.

"He ultimately ambushed the army of Cambyses, and in this way managed from his base in the oasis to reconquer a large part of Egypt, after which he let himself be crowned Pharaoh in the capital, Memphis," said Kaper.

Professor Kaper further says that the fate of the army remained unknown because of  the Persian King Darius I, who put an end to the Egyptian revolt with much bloodshed two years after the defeat of the Cambyses. To cover up the defeat of his predecessor he put out the story of the great sandstorm. 

An excavation conducted in Amheida, in the Dachla Oasis, helped discover the fact of the defeat.  Professor Kaper unearthed an ancient temple block that had the entire list of titles of Petubastis III. This helped uncover the mystery and summed up that the disappearance of the troops was just a cover-up.

"The temple blocks indicate that this must have been a stronghold at the start of the Persian period. Once we combined this with the limited information we had about Petubastis III, the excavation site and the story of Herodotus, we were able to reconstruct what happened," Kaper said.

This discovery will be announced at an International Conference on Thursday.