The Fayûm and Lake Mœris

by R. H. Brown

The highest Nile deposit near and on the Fayûm side of Lahûn is at about R.L. 26·00. The highest in the Fayûm near the Hawârah pyramid, which is on the edge of the Fayûm basin, is at R.L. 24·50 or thereabouts. The highest level of the lake was probably never more than one metre above this level, and it is therefore almost certain that the water-level was never sufficiently high to flow into the Wadi Raiân; and if it ever did, it must have been but rarely, when extraordinarily high and prolonged Niles occurred; so that it must be concluded, if my views are correct, that the normal condition of the Wadi Raiân was then, as now, that of a dry waterless depression in the desert, and it cannot therefore be considered as having been Lake Mœris, or a part of it even, at any time.

LINANT’S OBJECTIONS TO THEORY FAVOURED.

Author’s Views of Lake Mœris generally stated.—I myself agree with those who are of opinion that the Fayûm Province, or depression, (including the Gharaq Basin and the neck from Lahûn to Hawârah), was by itself Lake Mœris, and that within its limits and along its borders was to be found the inhabited and cultivated region known as the Arsinoïte Nome, which possibly also extended into the Nile Valley along the course of the canal connecting the Nile with the lake.

The Fayûm then in its submerged state was, I believe, the Lake Mœris of Herodotus, Strabo, Diodorus, and Pliny, the modern Lake Qurûn being the persistent rudiment of this lake, and all that now remains of its formerly extensive sheet of water. (See [Plate XX.])

Objections urged by Linant against these views.—This is no new theory. It is found passim before Linant Pasha in 1842 took great pains to point out its absurdity, but it was his own assumptions regarding the maximum height which the water surface of Lake Qurûn could have reached, that created the absurdity. Assuming without evidence that the villages on the second plateau were all in existence at the time of Lake Mœris, he limits the level of Lake Qurûn to the edge of the second plateau, which is the same thing as laying down that its water surface never rose above R.L. + 10·00.

Having come to this conclusion, he might have spared himself all his arguments against the theory, other than that which pointed out that a reservoir in the Fayûm at this level could have been of no utility in supplementing the low waters of the Nile.

It is, however, instructive to note how he deals with the arguments against this lake, which his imagination set bounds to, being Lake Mœris. After a separate review of each condition which Lake Mœris should fulfil and which the limited Lake Qurûn did not, he closes his reviews with the remark that “we may then conclude that Birket-el-Qurûn is not the Lake Mœris.” But he does not do so always. Should the condition be one with which his own theory is not in agreement, he explains it away or discredits it. The dimensions assigned to Lake Mœris by the ancient historians evidently trouble him, and he does his best to discredit their testimony on this point. After discussing this condition, he does not end his argument with the usual conclusion that “the present Lake Qurûn cannot be Lake Mœris,” but he says “an absolute importance must not be attached to all these measures in order to draw from them conclusions either positive or negative as to the identity of the position of Birket-el-Qurûn with that of the ancient Lake Mœris.”

The depth assigned to Lake Mœris also gives rise to the following remarks, which will afford the means of judging of the value of M. Linant’s arguments. He states that Herodotus gives the depth of the lake at 92 metres, and remarks that if the whole Fayûm had been filled to form the lake, its dimensions would have surpassed by ten times the greatest given for it.

But as a matter of fact, they do not even come up to the greatest dimensions given, which are, for the depth 92 metres, and for the perimeter of the lake 720 kilometres (450 miles), or, assuming as he does that Herodotus made use of the small stadius, 360 kilometres. Now the perimeter of the Fayûm is 220 kilometres, and if that of the Wadi Raiân is added, namely 200 kilometres, the total perimeter becomes 420 and that figure is only obtained by measuring the indentations of the Wadi Raiân, which is of a peculiar shape.

The depth of the Fayûm Lake, if filled to say R.L. + 25·00, would be not less than (25·00 + 43·50 + 5·00 =) 73·50 metres, nor more than 88·00 at the highest estimate.