Disappearance of a 50,000 men Egyptian army | Olaf Kaper | TEDxEde

Ever heard the story about the Persian king Cambyses who sent his army of 50,000 men into the desert and they never came back? They supposedly just disappeared. This is one of the great mysteries which Olaf has solved.

Olaf Kaper is professor in Egyptology at the university of Leiden. He forms part of an international excavation team in the Dakhla Oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt, and he is reconstructing the history of that area and the temples of the ancient Egyptian religion.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Ever since I was a little boy,

I had this passion for anything
to do with ancient Egypt,

and I couldn't explain it.

My parents were surprised.

They didn't know what this would lead to,
but I assured them it would be all right,

and so I went on to study Egyptology.

And now I'm doing research
that has led me to find out

something about one of the greatest
mysteries of the ancient world.

That's the story I want to tell you.

So, I went to study Egyptology.

That means you study ancient hieroglyphs,
you study archaeological remains,

and you try to find out as much as you can
about this ancient culture.

You may think that Egyptology

is a very tiny little edge
of human knowledge.

Well, it's pretty large;

Egypt has a history
of more than 5,000 years,

and to cover everything
from that enormous history

is too much.

So my colleagues, Egyptologists,
also specialize even further.

They do one or two periods
of that history,

or they work on particular types
of material, on religion, etc.

When the time came for me to choose
my specialization in Egyptology,

I decided to work on material
that had been more or less neglected,

that was the least studied of all -

in the time when Egypt started to change
from the ancient pharaonic culture

to a more modern Hellenistic type
of society, the Greco-Roman period.

And I got involved in
an archaeological project in Egypt,

where I worked on Roman period
remains in the desert,

in the oases of the Western Desert.

Now, you could say that I painted myself
into a pretty corner there;

being an Egyptologist

and also working in a period

that was considered the least interesting
and irrelevant of all.

Still, it has led me to some new ideas.

And I first want to take you back

to the ancient world
and to the Greek historian Herodotus.

Herodotus came to Egypt, ancient Egypt.

He traveled around in the time
of the pharaohs around 450 BC,

and it's something
I would love to do myself -

to be able to travel around
in the days of the pharaohs.

He wrote down exactly
what he heard and saw -

very valuable material.

One of the stories he relates

is that of a Persian army
sent out into the Western Desert

and it never came back.

What happened?

Cambyses II, the Persian king,

came with a large army,

he conquered Egypt,
and he went down further south.

And when he was in Thebes,
in the south, in modern-day Luxor,

he split off 50,000 men of his army,
and he sent them into the Western Desert

to attack the worshippers
of Amun, the Amonians,

and they would set fire
to the oracle of Amun -

that was their purpose.

Well, somehow, they traveled with a guide,

they set off from Thebes,

and they traveled for seven days
through the desert

until they reached a city called Oasis.

Then they went on further, Herodotus says,

they travel towards the Amonians
and hold somewhere,

and then when they were having
breakfast there,

a sand storm comes up,
a huge wind of extraordinary force,

and the sand makes them disappear.

Herodotus says
they never reach the Amonians

and they never come back
to the Nile Valley.

This is one of the great mysteries
of the ancient world,

and of course,

many people have been wondering
what happened to them,

and many people in modern times

have tried to find
the remains of this army

because the idea of having
a complete army from the Persian period

covered in a sand dune
that would just all be there to excavate -

it's just too good to be true.

(Laughter)

Of course, they would travel
with their animals,

they would have their weapons
with them, coins -

whatever was in their possession

would still be there.

So many people have sought for this army.

To me, it has always been
a bit too good to be true.

I had trouble with
this story of Herodotus;

there are several things, actually,
which don't add up.

First of all, the Persians
traveled with 50,000 men.

That's a huge amount for desert journeys,
especially for longer desert journeys.

There they go,

seven days through the desert
before they reach the first stop.

It's completely impractical. Why?

Well, they all have to take
their own water and food,

and then all the animals that travel
with them to carry this water and food

also need water and food, and so on.

The caravan would be huge -
far too impractical.

Then, there is also the point of Thebes:

They were sent out from Thebes;

Cambyses sent them
into the Western Desert from Thebes

and to go to the Amonians.

Well, there was an oracle of Amun,
a very famous oracle,

that also Alexander the Great visited.

And that's in Siwa, that's up in the north
of the Western Desert.

You don't go there from Thebes.

When you want to go to Siwa,
you travel the northern coast,

and that would be far more sensible.

So, again, I don't understand.

Then the matter of death:

This army disappears
in a sand dune, in a storm.

Well, I traveled a lot
in the Western Desert myself,

and I spoke to many travelers
who are very experienced in the Sahara.

And sandstorms are pretty nasty -

they can be a huge nuisance,
they can last for days,

you can run out of water,
you can lose your way -

but it doesn't kill you.

The sandstorm -
certainly with a large army -

it's inconceivable that it would actually
kill this amount of people.

So, to me,

the legend recorded by Herodotus
was just that, a legend, a myth,

something that couldn't have
happened in reality.

But still, it's attractive; it's a story.

People like to believe the unbelievable.

Just the idea is attractive because it is
about hidden treasure as well -

hidden treasure somewhere
out in the Egyptian desert.

To me, as a scientist,

I was interested in the story
because I wanted to find out,

Where does it come from?

What is the basis in reality?

Why did this story come up?

And in my work in the archaeology
of the Western Desert,

I actually came across material
that helped me to solve this puzzle.

Since about 10 years,

I excavate with a team of Americans
and Italians from New York University.

We excavate in a city
in the oasis of Dakhla,

and the city has a temple
that functioned for about 1,500 years.

And one of the first pieces we found
was written in hieroglyphs,

and it contained a name,
a royal name, "Petubastis" -

well, very interesting,

but there are several kings
with this name, Petubastis;

I couldn't place him
and it was just one piece.

Then 2014, in January,

we found further pieces,
and that helped them to solve this.

And it turned out
that this was Petubastis IV,

a king that was almost unknown.

It was a huge surprise
because this king was a guerilla leader,

he was a rebel,
he was in the early Persian period,

he was challenging the authorities
and claiming royal titles,

but up in the north of the country.

We had a few references to his name,
and that was all we knew of him.

We had four blocks
with the tutelary of this king.

We had some further inscriptions;
they could be pieced together.

And it turned out that this was a gateway,

a decorated doorway, that was inscribed
with full titles of this Petubastis IV,

and an inscription saying that he built
this temple for the local god of the city.

It was a big discovery.

I realized immediately
that this would be something big

because it didn't add up.

I was very much confused, actually,
when we found it.

I went home.

And in the evening,

I was sitting in our excavation house,

on a bench in front
of the house in the dark,

and I sat there for several hours
because I couldn't work it out.

We had found evidence
for a rebel leader, a guerrilla fighter,

a Che Guevara of the ancient world,

building a temple out in a corner
of the country where he wasn't known,

and - building a temple -
guerrilla leaders don't build temples.

It didn't add up.

And besides, there was no books
bout this Petubastis number four,

we didn't know anything about him,

and suddenly, he turns up
and he built a temple in the oasis.

I sat for hours there -
the moon was coming up,

the noise of crickets in the fields.

I was sort of waiting
for things to add up,

and suddenly, it struck me:

I could connect the story;

I could connect the points
of the Petubastis's blocks that we found

to other material that we knew.

Let me explain.

Cambyses II came with his huge army
and went down the Nile,

and when he sent out his army from Thebes,

that is exactly because we had
Petubastis IV in the Dakhla Oasis -

this was his home base.

We have the enemy now
of the Persian army

who was challenging the army in such a way
that 50,000 men or something similar

had to be sent out
into the Western Desert to be defeated.

Now, we can assume
that there was a battle;

there must have been
an Egyptian force in the oasis,

and there must have been a confrontation -

perhaps more confrontations,
we don't know that yet -

but we should be looking for a battlefield

somewhere in the region
between Thebes and the Oasis of Dakhla.

And that's the reason why in the end,
there was a temple built in the oasis.

We know that Petubastis won the battle

because he went on
to claim the capital of Egypt.

He went on to the north,

and that's where
we already found his name.

So, suddenly, it made a lot of sense:

We should be looking for a battle field

rather than a lost army
lost in a sand dune.

I think that the story that I found

gives back this king
[his place in] the king list of Egypt.

My story is about
a forgotten king, basically.

This Petubastis IV was far more important
than we made him out to be.

He was actually in charge
for several years;

we can now estimate that he must
have been in charge for several years.

He had enough power.

He had enough influence
to have temples built in his name,

which is quite something special.

Okay, we have another king
in the king list of Egypt added.

To me personally,

the story is also very much
about the choices I have made in my life.

To me, I realized early on
where my passion was,

that I wanted to become an Egyptologist,
and in the end, that's what I did.

I think it's actually
the most important thing

you can do in your life:

follow your passion,

find out where your passion is
and follow it,

wherever it may take you,

and in the end,

it may enable you
to rewrite a part of history.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)