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Archaeologists in Egypt say they have discovered the remains of a 50,000-strong Persian army buried by a sandstorm in 525 BC.
The army of King Cambyses II, charged with destroying the oracle at the Temple of Amun, perished in the desert after running out of water and SPF 50+.
The 2500 years the Persian force has spent in the sands of the Sahara Desert is being seen as a warning against a policy of ‘stay the course’.
Two and a half millennia buried up to your eyeballs in sand is bad enough, but many of the men were there on their second or third tour.
The make-believe science of the time ascribed the terrible sandstorm to the will of the gods, or possibly human-induced climate change.
For its part, Iran has denied intending to destroy the Temple of Amun, saying the 50,000-strong army was part of its civilian nuclear programme.
The discovery was made by Italian archaeologists Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni, famous for their discovery, 20 years ago, of Egypt’s “city of gold”.
As one of many people who also discovered Cities of Gold around this time, your correspondent can safely say that it was a pretty tedious cartoon.
The Castiglionis discovered the site after metal detectors picked up on bracelets and earrings buried beneath the sand. The bejewelled soldiers’ fate bears out the old saying, Prouds comes before a fall.
The destruction of Cambyses’s army by the sandstorm put an end to the King’s claim to Egypt and earned him the nickname ‘Colonel Sander’.
Egyptians have welcomed the news, eager to hear details of a story from their history in which sand plays a major role.
