Western Desert

Most eras before our own knew that solitude did not per se have to be a sign of wretchedness.

In the fourth century, the greatest saint of early Christianity, St. Anthony, was said to have spent more than 40 years by himself in Egypt's Western Desert, not saying a word, eating only bread and salt, and communing with God.

So impressed were some with Anthony's life, they came to join him in the desert and became collectively known as the Desert Fathers.

Their philosophy of solitary piety would go on to have a decisive influence on the founding of monasteries.

I don't know if I talked about this last time.

I can't recall the paper right off the top of my head, but it's a study of the whole area of the Western Desert.

I think I did talk about this, the inverted rivers.

In the Western Desert.

Yeah.

Can I talk about this?

This is the late Holocene marginalization.

So after 3500 BCE, rain ceased, even in ecological niches, and permanent occupation was restricted to southern areas such as Lakia and Wadi Hawar in northern Sudan for the Pharaonic Empire.

Y'all want to go? This is now the Hejaz.

versus the Jabab, right? The Western desert versus the Houthi mountaineers.

And if you set it on those terms, people in your own country and other parts of the Muslim world will say, oh my God, you've woken up.

You know, you're not, you're not, You're not just going down there.

If al-Masih did find the lost army, he took the secret of its location to his grave.

Half a century on, a Cairo newspaper reported a sensational discovery in the western desert.

The paper said that the army of King Cambyses had been found at last by a geologist, Dr. Ali Barakat.

To archaeologists, the claim was highly controversial.

It was from here that Cambyses launched his desert campaign after his conquest of Egypt in 525 BC.

Unfortunately, Dr. Barakat is unable to join the expedition.

Much of the western desert of Egypt is a restricted military zone, and he's not been granted a permit to revisit the site of his discoveries.

But he has provided Tom and Gail with his photographs and told them exactly where to look.

The method could make the high-performance alloy, known as GRCOP42, faster and less expensive to produce.

[whooshing] And fossilized shark teeth discovered in Egypt's Western Desert are offering a look at an ecosystem from about 80 million years ago.

Researchers identified five additional extinct shark species, bringing the total known from the area to at least seven.

At the time, the desert was covered by a warm, shallow sea connected to the ancient Tethys Ocean.

For decades, some of Australia's most extraordinary indigenous artists have been telling their stories of country, culture and connection through their work, and helping those stories reach the rest of the world is the work of people like our next guest.

Sarita Quinlivan has spent years working alongside some of the great names of Western desert art, and more recently, as art coordinator with Wala Kalangu artists at Yuendumu.

A passionate advocate for the artists, their stories and their culture, please welcome Sarita Quinlivan.

Ah, pleasure to have you on the show, Sarita, and to talk to you again.