50,000 man army possibly found after 2500 years

[Dragoonster]

Saw this article about a large Persian army, that dissapeared in ancient Egypt. Herodotus wrote about it but it seems it may have been thought of as legendary since. The photo of the skulls and bones is pretty creepy, and it's interesting to think of how the environment can make 50,000 people, or entire cities dissapear for millenia; and likely very quickly too. After watching the Life After People show on the History Channel, and cases like this and Troy, makes me wonder how many other legendary stories of sites or peoples are based in fact.

It also always amazes me that armies would march 50,000 or a million at a time even thousands of years ago, with much less technology, no vehicles, pack animals limited more by geography, less options for long-lasting food, and smaller populations. How did ancient man afford to be able to war when it probably cost their societies quite a bit? Was gaining other resources that necessary? Or was there a glut of resources at home allowing them to "splurge" on wars?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33791672/ns/technology_and_science-science/

The remains of a mighty Persian army said to have drowned in the sands of the western Egyptian desert 2,500 years ago might have been finally located, solving one of archaeology's biggest outstanding mysteries, according to Italian researchers.

Bronze weapons, a silver bracelet, an earring and hundreds of human bones found in the vast desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert have raised hopes of finally finding the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. The 50,000 warriors were said to be buried by a cataclysmic sandstorm in 525 B.C.

ETA: Here's a 3-min vid with the archaeologists as they explain how they located the find and their theories about the incident, along with artifacts that they say is evidence of their theory. And also some creepy skeletons! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ENizFYf96Y&feature=player_embedded

 

[MRC_Hans]

Saw this article about a large Persian army, that dissapeared in ancient Egypt. Herodotus wrote about it but it seems it may have been thought of as legendary since. The photo of the skulls and bones is pretty creepy, and it's interesting to think of how the environment can make 50,000 people, or entire cities dissapear for millenia; and likely very quickly too. After watching the Life After People show on the History Channel, and cases like this and Troy, makes me wonder how many other legendary stories of sites or peoples are based in fact.

I think many are based on fact. However, the factual base may often be quite different from the legend. Just for example, the size of the army in this legend may have been exaggarated by later narrators.

It also always amazes me that armies would march 50,000 or a million at a time even thousands of years ago, with much less technology, no vehicles, pack animals limited more by geography, less options for long-lasting food, and smaller populations. How did ancient man afford to be able to war when it probably cost their societies quite a bit? Was gaining other resources that necessary? Or was there a glut of resources at home allowing them to "splurge" on wars?

Well, I think war was considered very important to them, and a very large portion of their resources were used for it. However, part of the explanation is that they lived off the land. Even much later, travelling armies would leave the land they passed, be it friendly or enemy territory, pillaged and gutted.

Hans

 

[Dave Rogers]

Wow, that's fascinating. The lost army of Cambyses is a subject I remember well from childhood; it was the basis of the plot of "Biggles Flies South", one of my favourites of the Biggles books, which I think I still have a copy of somewhere, and which I must have been about ten when I first read. The prologue is set in 525BC and relates the experiences of a young prince, marching with Cambyses' army, as he sees the sandstorm, is overtaken by it, struggles to survive but is eventually buried alive; it's one of the most evocative passages in all the Biggles books [1]. It's wonderful to see that there was more than a grain of truth in it all.

Dave

[1] OK, that's not saying much.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, you have to understand that Persia was a huge and very rich empire for the time. They controlled the very fertile Mesopotamia, and then for a while even Egypt. They could feed a lot of population, or for that matter a lot of army.

Also, well, the Persians at the time didn't use body armour, so fielding huge armies was really cheap. All you needed for a soldier was a spear and a large wicker shield covered in leather. It was enough to stop arrows, though javelins or a good spear could go right through.

(Among other things, that's also why they lost big time against the Greeks. The heavily armoured hoplites seriously outmatched the masses of light infantry that the Persians used. Or why Xerxes was forced to use the Immortals, his own elite bodyguards, as an attack wave: they were the only ones who had scale armour under the robes. You know, the _other_ reason why they were called Immortals.)

So, yes, a 50,000 soldier army is nothing surprising for Persia.

 

[Beady]

My favorite legend of this type is the Roman legion that was taken prisoner and later wound up in China. There have apparently been enough odds'n ends found to suggest it might be true.

 

[Eddie Dane]

(Among other things, that's also why they lost big time against the Greeks. The heavily armoured hoplites seriously outmatched the masses of light infantry that the Persians used. Or why Xerxes was forced to use the Immortals, his own elite bodyguards, as an attack wave: they were the only ones who had scale armour under the robes. You know, the _other_ reason why they were called Immortals.)

I read Persian Fire last year, and that scene really got my heart racing.

The Greeks were completely outnumbered and thought that they were pretty much on a suicide mission to stop the Persians from reaching the cities.
Only when the armies made contact, did the Greeks realise that they could win. Technology, boy does it make a difference.

 

[ddt]

Obviously, I read the wrong books in my childhood, as I never heard of this story before. Fascinating! You forgot to mention in the OP that the goal of this failed expedition was the famous Oracle of Amun in the Siwa oasis.

While I agree with Hans' assessment that the Persians could easily field 50,000 men, I don't think this expedition was 50,000 men big. If Herodotus - our main (or only?) source on this is to believed, Cambyses wanted to field three expeditions at once: a naval expedition against Carthage (which wasn't launched because the Phoenicians disobeyed); an expedition to Siwa; and an expedition against the Nubians. Herodotus mentions that the last two started from Thebes, and that 50,000 split off to Siwa and the main force went south. Which means he had a lot more men to his disposal.

Furthermore, Siwa is located 348 miles west Cairo in the middle of the desert. Their route, as shown in the video, is even double that as they started from Upper Egypt in the south. They'd hit an oasis to refresh every couple of days or so. I don't think these would be able to support such a large army - and the armies in those days still had to live off the land.

Lastly, even if you believe Herodotus' tales about Cambyses' irrational behaviour, I don't think he would be that stupid to send a massive army just to subdue an oasis. He just wanted to teach them a lesson because they didn't accept his kingship.

So I think that Herodotus exaggerated the numbers. By all means, read his entertaining account of Cambyses' reign in Egypt, especially this gem:

38. It is clear to me therefore by every kind of proof that Cambyses
was mad exceedingly; for otherwise he would not have attempted to deride
religious rites and customary observances. For if one should propose
to all men a choice, bidding them select the best customs from all the
customs that there are, each race of men, after examining them all,
would select those of his own people; thus all think that their own
customs are by far the best: and so it is not likely that any but a
madman would make a jest of such things. Now of the fact that all men
are thus wont to think about their customs, we may judge by many other
proofs and more specially by this which follows:--Dareios in the course
of his reign summoned those of the Hellenes who were present in his
land, and asked them for what price they would consent to eat up their
fathers when they died; and they answered that for no price would
they do so. After this Dareios summoned those Indians who are called
Callatians, who eat their parents, and asked them in presence of the
Hellenes, who understood what they said by help of an interpreter, for
what payment they would consent to consume with fire the bodies of
their fathers when they died; and they cried out aloud and bade him
keep silence from such words. Thus then these things are established by
usage, and I think that Pindar spoke rightly in his verse, when he said
that "of all things law is king."

(from gutenberg.org)

Multiculturalism anno 450 BC.

 

[Beady]

Herodotus? The father of lies? Exaggerate?

What a concept!

 

[ddt]

Herodotus? The father of lies? Exaggerate?

What a concept!

Many of his "tall tales" have been proved by other sources, so the epithet "father of lies" is quite outdated. Also, this discovery proves there must have been such an expedition.

Apropos lies, I also found this site which gives a different account about the find:

Lately, there has been considerable petroleum excavation in the Western Desert. Anyone traveling the main route between the near oasis will see this activity, but the exploration for oil stretched much deeper into the Western Desert. It is not surprising that they have come upon a few archaeological finds, and it is not unlikely that they will come across others. Very recently, when a geological team from the Helwan University geologists found themselves walking through dunes littered with fragments of textiles, daggers, arrow-heads, and the bleached bones of the men to whom all these trappings belonged, they reported the discovery to the antiquity service.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, at Thermopylae the same Herodotus puts the strength of the Persian army at about 2.5 _million_ military personnel (mostly of them soldiers, but also including ship crews, marines, etc), plus about as many civillian support personnel. Two other contemporary or near contemporary sources give 4 million total (including the support personnel) and respectively 800,000 soldiers. For the kind of empire which can field that kind of an army, three armies of 50,000 are peanuts, really.

It must be mentioned, though, that the modern consensus is that Herodotus mis-understood the size of a unit by a factor of 10, so the Persian army was really "only" 250,000 military personnel. It still gives an awe-worthy perspective of the kind of armies that Persia could field. Even in that aspect, 3 armies of 50,000 at the same time are, as totals go, well below that number.

Of course, it's also possible that the expedition against the oracle was similarly mis-understood and involved only 5000 soldiers. Which is a bit more believable for an expedition through the desert.

I'll disagree though with the assessment that the army would have to live off the land. The disproportionate number of support personnel at Thermopylae (compared to the tiny number accompanying a Roman legion, for example) only makes sense if they were hauling a lot of supplies. I doubt that they were hauling along simple spectators -- though the commanders and immortals did historically bring servants and concubines along -- so very likely that was a _massive_ baggage train.

 

[Marduk]

Many of his "tall tales" have been proved by other sources, so the epithet "father of lies" is quite outdated. Also, this discovery proves there must have been such an expedition.

If he went there it was accurate, if he didn't it was made up, thats how he got the reputation in the first place, his description of the walls of Babylon are quite ludicrous.

 

[dudalb]

Herodotus is pretty unreliable..as are most ancient Historians..when it comes to numbers.

 

[Skeptic]

(Late at night in the palace...)

"For Marduk's sake, Cambyses, can't I trust you with anything? Didn't I tell you to take extra special case of that 50,000-strong army and not leave it where you'll forget it? But did you listen?!"

"Er, dad..."

"Shut up!! No, of course not! You just don't care! What do you do? You go ahead and lose it, of course. You think 50,000-men armies grow on trees, so who cares if you'll lose one -- dad's gonna pay for another one, right? That's what you were thinking, weren't you? Well?"

(Silence)

"No, I don't care if you stand there looking guilty. 'Sorry' doesn't cut it this time. That army is coming out of your allowance."

 

[Dragoonster]

Thanks for all the replies. I can't remember if I'd learned of these guys before this find or not, but it's great to hear these explanations about them.

There do seem to be questions about how the find was made; this part of the article is the only thing I found disturbing though:

The team communicated their finding to the Geological Survey of Egypt and gave the recovered objects to the Egyptian authorities.

"We never heard back. I'm sure that the lost army is buried somewhere around the area we surveyed, perhaps under 16.4 feet of sand."

I don't have a high opinion of the Egyptian's often parochial and sensationalist state archaeology, so I hope they treat this find properly.

 

[McHrozni]

I think many are based on fact. However, the factual base may often be quite different from the legend. Just for example, the size of the army in this legend may have been exaggarated by later narrators.

Considering the size of Persian armies one to two centuries later, I wouldn't say 50,000 men is necessarily an exaggaration. There were approximately 200,000 Persian soliders at Thermopylae just 36 years after this army went missing, and another 250,000 at Gaugamela, two centuries later. These are modern estimates, contemporary numbers are substantially higher.

Roman republic, with it's much smaller terrirtory (but higher population density) was able to absorb the losses of over 80,000 men in the first three years of the Second Punic war three centuries later.

It's still possible the number is indeed an exaggaration, but the number is not outside of the realm of possibility.

McHrozni

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Just to throw some more perspective in: At the height of its power Achaemenid Persia is estimated to have anywhere between 10 and 80+ _million_ inhabitants, with most estimates between 50 and 70 million people. And a surface of about 8 million square kilometres.

An army of 50,000 soldiers really meant 1/1000 or 0.1% of the population.

Not only it wouldn't have any problem losing that much, it probably didn't even start to put a dent in the normal overpopulation pressure. They basically weren't losing soldiers fast enough

 

[MRC_Hans]

*snip*
I'll disagree though with the assessment that the army would have to live off the land. The disproportionate number of support personnel at Thermopylae (compared to the tiny number accompanying a Roman legion, for example) only makes sense if they were hauling a lot of supplies. I doubt that they were hauling along simple spectators -- though the commanders and immortals did historically bring servants and concubines along -- so very likely that was a _massive_ baggage train.

Even in a modern army, the support functions are outnumbering the combat soldiers. The higher the technology, the more so.

Of course, they brough provisions with them, but they would try to keep them replenished from the land they crossed.

Basically, any non-motorized army can only bring as much provisions with it per capita as a man can carry. Of course, there can be some carts and beasts of burden, but through enemy territory, on roads that were just foot-paths, that part would be slow and vulnerable. For the same reasons, any supply-lines will be over-stretched within a week or two's travel, and they will have to live off the land.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Herodotus is pretty unreliable..as are most ancient Historians..when it comes to numbers.

We have to realize that any quest for precise and objective history accounts is a modern one. It was not the purpose of ancient historians to tell the objective story. Their purpose was to glorify whoever paid for their food.

Hans

 

[Tolls]

It's not about the raw numbers they could have supported, though. Fielding an army is not simply about your available manpower. Taking the figures for Thermopylae quoted above for example, that sort of army could simply not be supplied, and the forward troops on the march would have stripped the territories they past through long before the rearward ones had even left the empire.

 

[Damien Evans]

Herodotus is pretty unreliable..as are most ancient Historians..when it comes to numbers.

Not Thucydides though.