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As a time-travelling SG-1 sees firsthand in the two-part episode Moebius, Ra reigned in Ancient Egypt around 3000 B.C. During that time, Ra used Goa'uld technology, and the human resistance gathered hundreds of staff weapons and other Goa'uld technology to drive Ra away.

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The novel Moebius Squared revisits this era and shows that three years after the rebellion, the humans did not destroy their staff weapons and zat guns, and they use them again.

Given this, why is it that so few artifacts from Goa'uld reign exist for modern archaeologists to find? All they found is the Stargate, the DHD that the Nazis eventually got a hold of, and a number of religious artifacts from Ra and other "gods". Why aren't they finding staff weapons, dead Jaffa armor, and other stuff from the Goa'uld reign?

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    Given that the novel is what opens the door to them still existing, another source outside the tv show (especially since they are cancelled) is where any answer to this question lies. Anything else is speculation: weathering, rich man's trinkets, destroyed during use, taken apart for study, moved and reburied/lost, humans changed their minds and destroyed them later... maybe that is where Seth got all the weaponry for his cult... but it is all speculation until some other medium decides to address this.
    – Odin1806
    Aug 17 '17 at 15:21
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The simplest answer would be five thousand years of being in the desert eroded them into dust/unidentifiable scraps of metal.

We do not know what they are actually made of but in the case of the armor at least since modern military rounds can penetrate it, it cannot be some sort of super alloy (although I am fairly confident that even a super alloy would erode away after enough time in a desert)

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    Actually, it probably wouldn't weather away. This link tells the story of a meteorite that laid in the desert for thousands of years.
    – JRE
    Aug 17 '17 at 18:51
  • We also don't know if things like the power source would accelerate the weathering as they eventually failed. When a battery fails, the battery acid can leak out and corrode the ends. Seems at least plausible that whatever power source a staff uses could have some acids or mild radioactivity that would accelerate the decomposition, perhaps intentionally so enemies can't easily reverse engineer lost weapons.
    – wrosecrans
    May 11 '20 at 17:52
0

Jaffa Weapons and Armor According to this, which after a summary read through I can confirm is at least mostly accurate, Jaffa armor is made of Trinium, which is hundreds of times stronger than steel.

Durability of metals from archeological objects, metal meteorites and native metals

The seven metals of antiquity are gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, tin, and mercury. Archaeological and radiochemical dating suggest that human use of metals began in the period 6000 to 7000 Be. Thousands of metallic artifacts exist, some still in good repair after several millennia.

If iron can survive for millennia, I'm confidant that Trinium could.

The Ma'Tok staff weapon uses a liquid naquadah power source, naquadah being a much denser energy source than modern lithium-ion mediums, I'd assume any leakage could lead to catastrophic potential. In several episodes, liquid naquadah "batteries" are used as improvised explosives for moving through ship bulkheads, so any kind of damage wrought by erosion would likely destroy the weapon almost entirely.

As complete speculation, I'd assume the Ma'Tok staff and the Zat'Nik'Tel are both made of solid naquadah, as the Goa'uld are known to use that as interior hull for its energy conduction potential in their ships.

Naquadah forms the basis for many advanced technologies; the Stargates themselves are composed almost entirely of Naquadah.

To actually answer the question, so many smaller kingdoms to massive empires inhabited those regions throughout the millennia that even without environmental factors, religious beliefs would likely have led to the destruction of what early human civilizations considered "magic" or worse, proof of an enemy god.

The only canonically confirmed aliens to have visited Earth were, in this order: The Alterans(Either before or after the construction of Atlantis but definitely after the settlement of Dakara) The Goa'uld(From between, roughly, 8000 BCE to 3000 BCE) The Ohnes(an ancient race that is dedicated to fighting the Goa'uld throughout the galaxy) The Asgard(Who left no "Thor's Hammer" or anything like it, tech that they put on all of their "Protected" worlds) Martin's people(Who were Human as far as we know)

The Asgard MIGHT have removed any and all evidence of the Goa'uld, but why when every other world they did actually protect knew the Goa'uld as the Etens? Martin's people got to Earth, realized we were helpless and just kinda stayed.

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    This starts well (by highlighting why it's illogical for there to be such little proof of Goa'uld settlement), but then finished with pure speculation.
    – Valorum
    Jun 1 at 17:52
  • Reading through a bunch of other source material, the only speculation in my answer is that the Ma'Tok staff and the Zat'Nik'Tel are made of solid naquadah. Jun 1 at 18:07
  • I wasn't even going to mention that (despite that being very likely to be wrong). I was more concerned about that final paragraph. You might want to note that (for example) there were other aliens on Earth since the departure of the Goa'uld. Who's to say that they didn't take all that stuff?
    – Valorum
    Jun 1 at 18:09
  • 1
    The problem is, at this point you're basically indulging in fan-fiction. It's equally as likely that other aliens (who certainly knew about Earth) took the weapons as that the human leaders had them smashed or hidden, or any one of half a dozen possible circumstances including time travel.
    – Valorum
    Jun 1 at 19:13
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    The Oannes certainly hated the Goauld, certainly visited Earth and were comfortably starfaring. Why not them?
    – Valorum
    Jun 1 at 19:23

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