Although the oasis of Kharga was doubtless inhabited in prehistoric times, as, indeed, is shown by the existence of flint implements of Palæolithic type on the surrounding plateaux, and also to a lesser extent within the depression, no graves referable to the prehistoric period of Egyptologists—_i.e._, the period immediately preceding that known as the first dynasty, when Menes united Egypt about 3,300 B.C.[4]—have as yet been discovered. But while it is known that the Egyptian kings claimed the allegiance of the inhabitants of the oases as far back as the eighteenth dynasty (1545-1350 B.C.), the earliest known monumental records in Kharga date from a much later period—_i.e._, the twenty-seventh dynasty—when Egypt was under Persian domination. It was at this time that Cambyses, in an endeavour to subdue the inhabitants of the outlying oases, lost a large portion of his army in the Western Desert, probably somewhere to the west or north-west of Kharga. The Persian monarch had recently defeated the Egyptian king, Psammetikh III., at Pelusium, and made Egypt a Persian province. On his arrival at Thebes some 50,000 men were detached from the main army proceeding to Ethiopia, and ordered to march against the Ammonians and burn the oracular temple of Jupiter Ammon. This abortive expedition into the Libyan Desert is described by Herodotus (‘Thalia,’ 26) as follows:[5] “The men sent to attack the Ammonians started from Thebes, having guides with them, and may be clearly traced as far as the city Oasis, which is inhabited by Samians, said to be of the tribe Æschrionia. The place is distant from Thebes seven days’ journey across the sand, and is called in our tongue ‘the Island of the Blessed.’ Thus far the army is known to have made its way; but thenceforth nothing is to be heard of them, except what the Ammonians, and those who get their knowledge from them, report. It is certain they neither reached the Ammonians, nor ever came back to Egypt. Further than this, the Ammonians relate as follows: that the Persians set forth from the Oasis across the sand, and had reached about half-way between that place and themselves, when, as they were at their midday meal, a wind arose from the south, strong and deadly, bringing with it vast columns of whirling sand, which entirely covered up the troops, and caused them wholly to disappear. Thus, according to the Ammonians, did it fare with this army.”