The Fayûm and Lake Mœris

by R. H. Brown

These dimensions agree approximately with those given by Herodotus, and are not, as rashly stated by Linant, ten times in excess.

To show with what unfairness Linant deals with statements made by Herodotus, his arguments about the bricks made for the pyramid built by Asychis may be noted. It was stated that the bricks were made from mud brought up from the bottom of the lake. Linant claims this statement as supporting his theory, as his lake was a shallow one, and as opposing the enlarged Lake Qurûn theory, as this latter would be a deep one. It does not seem to strike him that the workmen could have sought their mud along the shallow margins of the larger lake. He further argues that one could not reach down more than 4 metres with poles, and therefore the lake could not have been so deep as stated by Herodotus, and hence Herodotus contradicts himself! But Herodotus did not say that the lake was 92 metres deep all over, and that its shores were not shallow, but that its greatest depth was 92 metres.

Linant Pasha discussed the possibility of the submerged Fayûm being the Lake Mœris, but rejected the idea, because, to fulfil the condition of supplementing the low Nile, the water must have covered the second plateau, and risen to a level above the rock sill at Hawârah (R.L. 21·00). “Then,” he points out, “the whole Fayûm would have been only a vast lake and with a height of water impossible to reconcile with the existence of large towns, which formed the rich Crocodilopolite or Arsinoïte nomes. The great quantity of ruined towns, abandoned like Medinet-el-Mahdi, Medinet-el-Hêb, Medinet Nemroud, Kasr Keroun, indicate, as well as those which still exist, as Sanuris, Sanhur and all the others, that this part has never been under water, and they date from the time of Lake Mœris and of Crocodilopolis.” (Earlier in his book he states about Kasr Keroun, “Kasr Keroun is a little monument, quite modern as compared with the epoch of the Labyrinth.” Mr. Petrie and Dr. Schweinfurth both state that Qasr Qurûn is a Roman temple or town.) M. Linant continues, “If ever the Fayûm has been under water, as we have supposed it, it was long before it was habitable and before the Lake Mœris existed.”

Plate XIV.

OLD BUILDING ON NORTH SIDE OF LAKE QURÛN,

DISCOVERED BY DR. SCHWEINFURTH IN 1884. EXTERIOR FROM NORTH-EAST.

Now as regards the modern villages of Sanûris, Sanhûr, and others, I am not aware on what evidence M. Linant states that they existed at the same time as Lake Mœris. As regards the old abandoned towns mentioned, some of them are on elevated spots, and probably were on the shores of Lake Mœris. When Lake Mœris declined and the water had receded to a distance from them, they were abandoned for more favourable sites, less remote from a water supply and water transport. Probably Sanûris and Sanhûr, and the other villages on the edge of the second plateau, are the successors in time of the ancient elevated towns mentioned as ruined and abandoned.

Thus, instead of considering the remains of the old high-level abandoned towns as evidence destructive of the theory that the whole Fayûm was filled with water, I consider their testimony distinctly favours such a theory.

Those towns especially, whose ruins are found on the north side of Lake Qurûn, would certainly have been built near the then borders of the lake, as they could have had no possible source of water supply other than the lake itself. It, therefore, is a matter of great interest to determine the levels of any ancient towns that may be found on the north of the lake; and the more ancient the town and the more remote from the present lake, the more suggestive will be the facts that may be ascertained with reference to its levels.