Case file · High strangeness
The lost army of Cambyses
Herodotus says that about 524 BCE the Persian king Cambyses sent 50,000 soldiers from Thebes against the oracle of Amun at Siwa, and that they vanished in a sandstorm halfway there.
524 BCE · 28.00, 26.50 · status: legend
The account
Explorers have looked for the army for two centuries. In 2009 the Italian brothers Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni announced bones, weapons and jewellery that they said might be its remains. The position here is a rough midpoint on the presumed route.
The sceptical view
The Castiglioni finds were never published scientifically. Some historians think the story covers a defeat by Egyptian rebels.