“It’s not unreasonable to think this relatively isolated spot along the Central California coast could resemble ancient Egypt, or at least, generalised Western perceptions of it. Although it is often cold and foggy here, I could almost imagine Guadalupe as Giza on a hot, sunny day with caravans of tassel-covered camels making their way across the expanse, their long shadows stretching across the sands where ochre-coloured pyramids dotted the horizon. It was a comparison not lost on legendary director Cecil B DeMille, who used the area, officially known as the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes, as the filming site for his 1923 silent epic, The Ten Commandments. Although he would go on to make another, better-known, talking version of the story more than 30 years later, it is the remnants of this first iteration that have come to captivate the imaginations of archaeologists, film buffs and the just plain curious.”—”A city under the sand: The Lost City of Cecil B DeMille. Remnants of one of the silent film era’s most epic productions lay buried along the Central California coast – until a small group of curious adventure-seekers decided to start digging.”