The mass grave of a legendary Persian army lost in the Sahara 2,500 years ago

The remains of a legendary 50,000-strong army which was swallowed up in a cataclysmic sandstorm in the Sahara Desert 2,500 years ago are believed to have been found.

Italian archaeologists Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni, twin brothers, have discovered bronze weapons and hundreds of human bones which they reckon are the remains of the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II.

According to the Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 BC), Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, sent the soldiers from Thebes to attack the Oasis of Siwa in 525BC.

Their mission was to destroy the oracle at the Temple of Amun after the priests there refused to legitimise his claim to Egypt.

Oracles were places where divine advice or prophecy was sought and the ancient Egyptians held them to be manifestations of the gods that could see into the future. They were often consulted before big decisions.

Two centuries after the soldiers disappeared, Alexander the Great made his own pilgrimage there in 332BC before he began his conquest of Persia. His historians claimed that the oracle then confirmed he was the divine son of Zeus, the Greek god equated with Amun, and the legitimate pharaoh of Egypt.

This bronze dagger dating from King Cambyses’ time is one of the stunning finds made by the researchers

 

The Temple of Amun which Cambyses’ army had set out to destroy because priests there refused to legitimise his claim to Egypt

This is Just a Seed!

It’s a seed of Coco de Mer tree. It looks pretty weird… ;) Here what we found on wikipedia about it:

The Coco de Mer belongs to the Coryphoidae subfamily and tribe Borasseae. Borasseae is represented by four genera in Madagascar and one in Seychelles out of the seven worldwide. They are distributed on the coastlands surrounding the Indian ocean and the existing islands within. Borassus, the genus closest to Lodoicea, has about five species in the “old world,” one species in Africa, one in India, South-East Asia and Malaysia, one in New Guinea and two species in Madagascar.

The tree grows to 25–34 m tall. The leaves are fan-shaped, 7–10 m long and 4.5 m wide with a 4 m petiole. It is dioecious, with separate male and female plants. The male flowers are catkin-like, up to 1 m long. The mature fruit is 40–50 cm in diameter and weighs 15–30 kg, and contains the largest seed in the plant kingdom. The fruit, which requires 6–7 years to mature and a further two years to germinate, is sometimes also referred to as the Sea Coconut, Bum Seed, double coconut, coco fesse, or Seychelles Nut.

The Coco de Mer is the most interesting species of the six monospecific endemic palms in Seychelles since it is the “only true case of island gigantism among Seychelles flowering plants, a unique feature of Seychelles vegetation”. It is one of the most universally well-known plants and holds three botanical records; the largest fruit so far recorded weighed 42 kg; the mature seeds weighing up to 17.6 kg are the world’s heaviest and the female flowers are the largest of any palm.

CAN YOU EAT THESE CAKES?

Some of these Cakes might not be inviting to your eyes, but I'm sure they taste so good. All you need is to close your eyes to pick them all.. : )