Missing Army Found
Siwa, the mysterious oasis in the desert west of the Nile, is home to many mysteries. Famed throughout the ancient world for its oracle of the god Amun, it was one of only two oracles that responded correctly to puzzle set by the Lydian king Croesus: "What am I doing now?"
Faced with a threat from the growing power of Persia, Croesus sought divine guidance but found it difficult to choose between the large number of oracles. He therefore sent ambassadors, armed with suitable offerings, and instructed them to count 100 days from the day of departure. On the hundredth day they were to go to the oracle to which they had been sent and ask, "What is Croesus doing now?" He then spent the next four months dreaming up the most unlikely thing he could possibly be doing and decided to retire to an isolated part of the palace and there cook a lamb and a tortoise in a bronze cauldron.
When the ambassadors returned, the answer given by the oracle of Delphi was judged to be the most accurate with that from Siwa coming a close second and all the rest were failures.
This reputation may have been what inspired Alexander to undertake the difficult journey across the desert to Siwa when he conquered Egypt. There he entered the great temple of Amun and spent some time closeted with the god. When he emerged he reported that the god had imparted to him a great secret but had forbidden him to reveal it to anyone - and he never did. According to one source, he wrote to his mother, Olympias, and promised to tell her the secret when he returned home, but as he died in Babylon, the secret died with him.
Another mystery concerns the tomb of Alexander, which the Greek archaeologist Liana Souvlatzi claimed to have discovered in 1991. The claim was disputed and widely doubted, but as she is not allowed to excavate in Egypt any more and the objects on which she based her claim are hidden away in storerooms, it is impossible to properly evaluate her discovery, which some suggest is, in fact, the tomb of one of Alexander's generals.
The most intriguing mystery, however, comes from the history of Herodotus, widely dismissed as "the Father of Lies" instead of the more just title of "the Father of History". According to Herodotus, in 525 BC Cambyses, the mad son of Cyrus the Great, decided to attack Siwa. The exact motive for this decision is not known: the most likely reason was the vast riches of the oracle, which would have provided a healthy boost to Cambyses war chest. It is not impossible, however, that Cambyses - whose delusions of godhood were by then in full swing - may have decided to eliminate a divine rival.
Whatever the reason, he dispatched an army 50,000 strong with orders to destroy the oracle. The army marched off into the desert, stopped to rest at one of the western oases, and then vanished. Reports from Siwa claimed that it had been swallowed up by a ferocious sandstorm - provided by the god, of course - though it was never explained how the inhabitants of the oasis could have known that the army was buried.
Over the years a number of explorers, wandering the western desert, have kept their eyes open for any trace of the vanished army and their continued lack of success has led many to question the whole story. Forgetting that Cambyses was a madman, they bring logic and reason to bear to point out how unlikely it was that any rational person would dispatch an army for such a purpose, or such a large army, or any army at all by such a route, and so on. (One does get rather tired of all these wiseacres rewriting history just because they do not think that this or that is plausible.)
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| Some of the hundreds of skeletons found by the Castiglioni brothers, along with Persian arrowheads. |
Now Italian twins Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni claim to have solved the mystery. They used the Italian festival of archaeological films in Roverto to announce that during an expedition to investigate iron meteorites in the Bahrin oasis, not far from Siwa, they came across the traces of the vanished army. Four further expeditions over a thirteen year period have confirmed the discovery with pottery from the Persian period, hundreds of sun-bleached skeletons, rumours of a bronze sword sold to American tourists, and a silver bracelet and earring, also from the Persian period.
Unfortunately the brothers - entirely correctly - handed their finds over to the Egyptian authorities, together with a full report of where they had been found, and have heard nothing further. It is quite possible that the discovery has been quashed by Zahi Hawass, the head of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, because he was not involved in the discovery and he cannot bear anyone else to get the limelight.
The main problem with the Italian announcement - if problem it is - is that most archaeologists assume that the unnamed oasis mentioned by Herodotus is the Kharga Oasis, which lies on the shortest route from the Nile Valley to Siwa and that from there the Persians marched north-west through the Dakhla and Farafra oases. The Catiglioni discovery, however, requires that the Persians used a different route entirely, one which passed through Gilf el-Kebir and Wadi Abd el-Melik, then swung north to approach Siwa from the south.
If true, the route was longer and less well provided with water than the Kharga route. The brothers point to the discovery of artificial "wells" consisting of hundreds of water pots buried in the sand and speak of taking the defenders of the oasis by surprise. It is unlikely that the garrison of Siwa needed taking by surprise. Considering that Cambyses had captured the whole of Egypt, the few soldiers in the isolated oasis of Siwa could not have posed a serious threat to 50,000 elite Persian troops.
However it does provide an explanation of how the inhabitants of Siwa could have learned of the fate that befell their attackers. The Castiglioni's initial discovery was made in the lee of a large rock outcrop 115' long and 6' high. They suggest that some of the Persians might have found shelter from the sandstorm behind this rock and then staggered on to Sitra Lake, about 90 miles east-south-east from Siwa, from where they were rescued and taken on to Siwa. Not daring to return to face the wrath of Cambyses, they simply vanished among the local population, leaving only the rumours of the fate which befell the majority of their compatriots.
© Kendall K. Down 2009
