"The first European reference to Zerzura is in an 1835 account by the English Egyptologist John Gardner Wilkinson, based on a report by an Arab who said he had found the oasis while searching for a lost camel.
Placed five days west of the track connecting the oases of Farafra and Bahariya, the "Oasis called Wadee Zerzoora" abounded "in palms, with springs, and some ruins of uncertain date."
Notable twentieth-century explorers Ralph Bagnold of Britain, and the Hungarian László (Ladislaus) Almásy led an expedition to search for Zerzura from 1929–1930 using Ford Model A trucks.
The men were said to be tall with fair hair and blue eyes, carrying straight swords instead of Arab scimitars, who then took the camel driver back to a city called Zerzura to tend to him.
The emir suspected something strange and had Keila searched by his guards, who found a precious ruby set in a gold ring hidden on the man.
According to unknown sources, the ring supposedly came into possession of Libya's King Idris, who was overthrown in 1969 by Muammar al-Gaddafi and his Revolutionary Command Council.
Furthermore, because Hamid Keila was the narrator of the Zerzura tale, it is possible that he may have been the anonymous author of the Kitab al Kanuz (Book of Hidden Treasures) since his plight occurred in the 15th century, as the manuscript was also published at that time.