The implements occur chiefly along the margin of the highest level of the old lake, and have probably in many cases been buried in the lake clays until the present time, which would account for their beautiful state of preservation. We have not, however, yet actually detected them enclosed within the clays, although commonly found lying on the clean wind-worn surface. From the fine degree of workmanship we may undoubtedly refer these flint implements to the Neolithic or later stone-age, although the exact date is doubtful. That they were made and used while the lake still stood at its highest level seems certain, but as we have shown above, the lake, as a sheet of water up to 23 metres above sea-level or thereabouts, probably existed far anterior to the Egyptian historic period. They might, on the other hand, as far as the evidence from the position of the lake goes, have been used by the inhabitants of the lake-margin down to the great reclamation which took place in Ptolemaic times. As it seems impossible to date them by comparison with flints of known age from any Egyptian period, we may perhaps conclude that they are at least of older date than the earliest Egyptian records.[95]

P.—Historic.

In historical times, under conditions almost identical with those of the Nile of to-day, there would have been an annual inflow during the flood and outflow back to the Nile when the latter subsided; during the inflow a constant supply of Nile mud was brought into the lake and deposited on the surface of the earlier alluvium, continually augmenting the thickness of the latter and raising its surface, until in the central area marshy land began to appear. In the XII Dynasty this natural backwater of the Nile, which acted as a more or less efficient regulator of high and low floods, was brought under human control by Amenemhat I, and a considerable area of land reclaimed from the shallowest part of the lake, or that part of the country now lying near Edwa, Medinet el Fayûm, etc. The new artificially controlled lake was called Moeris, and its wonders are mentioned by Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo and Pliny.

The actual position of Lake Moeris has been the subject of much discussion, the late Linant de Bellefonds[96] having asserted that it was a high-level lake, quite distinct from the Birket el Qurûn, occupying the gap in the hills by which the Bahr Yusef enters the Fayûm, its encircling bank commencing at Edwa and passing through Biahmu, Medinet, etc. Sir Hanbury Brown has,[97] however, completely demolished Linant’s theory, which is shown to be absolutely untenable; and has proved conclusively that the ancient Mœris occupied the greater part of what is now the cultivated land, as well as the area covered by the present lake and a considerable part of the surrounding desert, the reclaimed land being in fact part of the very district Linant supposed the lake to have occupied. Since the publication of Brown’s work complete corroborative evidence has been forthcoming from two distinct sources, one archæological, the other geological. The latter has already been mentioned.

Fig. 10.—Sketch Map showing approximately the site of Lake Moeris.

It was clear from the map of Claudius Ptolemy that the route through the Fayûm to the Oasis Parva left Bacchias near the north end of the lake, and passing between Arsinœ and Lake Mœris, reached Dionysias near the other end. The archæological researches of Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt[98] have shown that Bacchias occupied the site of the modern Um el Atl close to one end of the Birket el Qurûn, while Dionysias was probably in the neighbourhood of Qasr el Banat or Qasr el Qurûn. Thus the Ptolemaic Lake Mœris was almost identical with the modern Birket el Qurûn. Neither did the sites excavated yield a trace of anything older than the third century B.C. Theadelphia and Philoteris were founded in the reign of the second Ptolemy, when a great reclamation of the land from the lake took place, and probably Euhemeria, Dionysias, Karanis and Bacchias date from the same reign.

The archæological evidence is thus briefly summed up by Grenfell and Hunt: “Originally the lake filled the whole basin of the Fayûm, the first reclamation being carried out by Amenemhat I, who built the great dam at El Lahûn, where the Bahr Yusef enters the province, and recovered the high ground near the entrance as far as Biahmu, and a point between Abshawai and Agamiin. This remained the Pharaonic province until the time of Herodotus, when the water still came up to the colossi at Biahmu. Subsequently all the land now cultivated below the level of the Pharaonic province was reclaimed, chiefly in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, when Lake Mœris was reduced nearly to the size of its modern representative, the Birket el Qurûn”.

Present day Fauna of the Birket el Qurûn.As mentioned above, the Pleistocene fauna of the Fayûm differs in one or two particulars from the fauna of the present day. The commonest living molluscan forms include the following:—