History

When the Mediterranean Sea was a hot dry hollow near the end of the Messinian Salinity Crisis in the lateMiocene, Faiyum was a dry hollow, and the Nile flowed past it at the bottom of a canyon (which was 8000 feet deep or more (where Cairo is today). After the Mediterranean reflooded at the end of theMiocene, the Nile canyon became an arm of the sea reaching inland further than Aswan. Over geological time that sea arm gradually filled with silt and became the Nile valley.

Eventually the Nile valley bed silted up high enough to let the Nile in flood overflow into the Faiyum hollow and make a lake in it. The lake is first recorded from about 3000 BC, around the time of Menes (Narmer). However, for the most part it would only be filled with high flood waters. The lake was bordered byneolithic settlements, and the town of Crocodilopolis grew up on the south where the higher ground created a ridge.

A scenic view of Faiyum Oasis in 2008

In 2300 BC, the waterway from the Nile to the natural lake was widened and deepened to make a canal which is now known as the Bahr Yussef. This canal fed into the lake. This was meant to serve three purposes: control the flooding of the Nile, regulate the water level of the Nile during dry seasons, and serve the surrounding area with irrigation. There is evidence of ancient Egyptian pharaohs of the twelfth dynasty using the natural lake of Faiyum as a reservoir to store surpluses of water for use during the dry periods. The immense waterworks undertaken by the ancient Egyptian pharaohs of the twelfth dynastyto transform the lake into a huge water reservoir gave the impression that the lake itself was an artificial excavation, as reported by classic geographers and travellers . The lake was eventually abandoned due to the nearest branch of the Nile dwindling in size from 230 BC.

Faiyum was known to the ancient Egyptians as the twenty-first nome of Upper Egypt, Atef-Pehu("Northern Sycamore"). In ancient Egyptian times, its capital was Sh-d-y-t (usually written "Shedyt"), called by the Greeks Crocodilopolis, and refounded by Ptolemy II as Arsinoe.

This region has the earliest evidence for farming in Egypt, and was a center of royal pyramid and tomb-building in the Twelfth dynasty of the Middle Kingdom, and again during the rule of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Faiyum became one of the breadbaskets of the Roman world.

For the first three centuries AD, the people of Faiyum and elsewhere in Roman Egypt not only embalmed their dead but also placed a portrait of the deceased over the face of the mummy wrappings, shroud or case. The Egyptians continued their practice of burying their dead, despite the Roman preference forcremation. Preserved by the dry desert environment, these Faiyum portraits make up the richest body of portraiture to have survived from antiquity. They provide us with a window into a remarkable society of peoples of mixed origins —Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Syrians, Libyans and others — that flourished 2,000 years ago in Faiyum. The Faiyum portraits were painted on wood in a pigmented wax technique calledencaustic.

In the late first millennium AD, the arable area shrank, and settlements around the edge of the basin were abandoned. These sites include some of the best-preserved from the late Roman Empire, notablyKaranis, and from the Byzantine and early Arab Periods, though recent redevelopment has greatly reduced the archaeological features.

For late-period Ancient Egyptian names of the Faiyum oasis and places within it, seehttp://fayum.arts.kuleuven.be/general/name.html . "Colonial-type" village names (villages named after towns elsewhere in Egypt and places outside Egypt) show that much land was brought into cultivation in the Faiyum in the Greek and Roman periods.

Archaeology

There are, especially in the neighborhood of the lake, many ruins of ancient villages and cities. Mounds north of the city of Faiyum mark the site of Crocodilopolis. In January 2008, Egypt's supreme council of antiquities announced the discovery of an ancient city of farmers dating back to 5200 BC. The site, which probably sat at the edge of Faiyum lake at the time, is still largely buried in the sand, although excavations have revealed walls and houses built of terracotta and limestone, along with foundations of ovens and grain stores.

Birket Qarun lake

The Faiyum oasis contains the city of Faiyum. It also comprises several other towns, among them Sinnūris and Tāmīya to the north of Faiyum, and Sanhūr and Ibshawāi on the road to the lake.