Faiyum

For other uses, see Faiyum (disambiguation).

Faiyum (/faɪˈjuːm/ fy-YOOM; Arabic: الفيوم, romanized: el-Fayyūm, locally [elfæjˈjuːm])^{[lower-alpha 1]} is a city in Middle Egypt. Located 100 kilometres (62 miles) southwest of Cairo, in the Faiyum Oasis, it is the capital of the modern Faiyum Governorate. It is one of Egypt's oldest cities due to its strategic location.^[2]

Faiyum الفيوم
City
Clockwise from top: a fishing boat on Lake Qarun, Whale Valley, trees fighting desertification, Sobek Temple
Faiyum Location within Egypt
Coordinates: 29.308374°N 30.844105°E / 29.308374; 30.844105
Country	Egypt
Governorate	Faiyum
Area
• Total	18.5 km2 (7.1 sq mi)
Elevation [1]	29 m (95 ft)
Population  (2021)[1]
• Total	519,047
• Density	28,000/km2 (73,000/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+2 (EET)

Name and etymology

šd t[3] in hieroglyphs

pꜣ ym in hieroglyphs

Originally founded by the ancient Egyptians as Shedet, its current name in English is also spelled as Fayum, Faiyum or al-Faiyūm. Faiyum was also previously officially named Madīnat al-Faiyūm (Arabic for The City of Faiyum). The name Faiyum (and its spelling variations) may also refer to the Faiyum Oasis, although it is commonly used by Egyptians today to refer to the city.^[4][5]

The modern name of the city comes from Coptic  ̀Ⲫⲓⲟⲙ /Ⲡⲉⲓⲟⲙ epʰiom/peiom (whence also the personal name Ⲡⲁⲓⲟⲙ payom), meaning the Sea or the Lake, which in turn comes from late Egyptian pꜣ-ym of the same meaning, a reference to the nearby Lake Moeris; the extinct elephant ancestor Phiomia was named after it.

Ancient history

"Crocodilopolis" redirects here. For the namesake sites in Upper Egypt and Israel, see Crocodilopolis (disambiguation).

Archaeological evidence has found occupations around the Faiyum dating back to at least the Epipalaeolithic. Middle Holocene occupations of the area are most widely studied on the north shore of Lake Moeris, where Gertrude Caton Thompson and Elinor Wight Gardner did a number of excavations of Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic sites, as well as a general survey of the area.^[6] Recently the area has been further investigated by a team from the UCLA/RUG/UOA Fayum Project.^[7][8]

According to Roger S. Bagnall, habitation began in the fifth millennium BC and a settlement was established by the Old Kingdom (c. 2685–2180 BC) called Shedet (Medinet el-Fayyum).^[9] It was the most significant centre of the cult of the crocodile god Sobek (borrowed from the Demotic pronunciation as Koinē Greek: Σοῦχος Soûkhos, and then into Latin as Suchus). In consequence, the Greeks called it "Crocodile City" (Koinē Greek: Κροκοδειλόπολις Krokodeilópolis), which was borrowed into Latin as Crocodīlopolis. The city worshipped a tamed sacred crocodile called, in Koine, Petsuchos, "the Son of Soukhos", that was adorned with gold and gem pendants. The Petsoukhos lived in a special temple pond and was fed by the priests with food provided by visitors. When Petsuchos died, it was replaced by another.^[10][11]

El Faiyum map

Under the Ptolemaic Kingdom, the city was called Ptolemais Euergétis (Koinē Greek: Πτολεμαῒς Εὐεργέτις)^[12] until Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309–246 BC) renamed the city Arsinoë and the whole nome after the name of his sister-wife Arsinoe II (316–270 or 268), who was deified after her death as part of the Ptolemaic cult of Alexander the Great, the official religion of the kingdom.^[13] Ptolemy II Philadelphus also established a town at the edge of Faiyum named Philadelphia. It was laid out in a regular grid plan to resemble a typical Greek city, with private dwellings, palaces, baths and a theatre.^[14]

Under the Roman Empire, Arsinoë became part of the province of Arcadia Aegypti. To distinguish it from other cities of the same name, it was called "Arsinoë in Arcadia".

With the arrival of Christianity, Arsinoë became the seat of a bishopric, a suffragan of Oxyrhynchus, the capital of the province and the metropolitan see. Michel Le Quien gives the names of several bishops of Arsinoë, nearly all of them associated with one heresy or another.^[15]

The Catholic Church, considering Arsinoë in Arcadia to be no longer a residential bishopric, lists it as a titular see.^[16]

Fayyum was the seat of Shahralanyozan, governor of the Sasanian Egypt (619–629).^[17]

The 10th-century Bible exegete, Saadia Gaon, thought el-Fayyum to have actually been the biblical city of Pithom, mentioned in Exodus 1:11.^[18]

Around 1245 CE, the region became the subject of the most detailed government survey to survive from the medieval Arab world, conducted by Abū ‘Amr ‘Uthman Ibn al-Nābulusī.^[19]

Faiyum mummy portraits

Portrait of a man, c. 125–150 AD. Encaustic on wood; 37 cm × 20 cm (15 in × 8 in)

Main article: Fayum mummy portraits

Faiyum is the source of some famous death masks or mummy portraits painted during the Roman occupation of the area. The Egyptians continued their practice of burying their dead, despite the Roman preference for cremation. While under the control of the Roman Empire, Egyptian death masks were painted on wood in a pigmented wax technique called encaustic—the Faiyum mummy portraits represent this technique.^[20] While previously believed to represent Greek settlers in Egypt,^[21][22] modern studies conclude that the Faiyum portraits instead represent mainly native Egyptians, reflecting the complex synthesis of the predominant Egyptian culture and that of the elite Greek minority in the city.^[23][24][25]

The Zenon Papyri

Fragment of a papyrus letter discussing tax issues from the Zenon Archive (National Archaeological Museum, Athens)

Main article: Zenon of Kaunos

The construction of the settlement of Philadelphia under Ptolemy II Philadelphus was recorded in detail by a 3rd-century BC Greek public official named Zeno (or Zenon, Greek: Ζήνων). Zeno, a native of Kaunos in lower Asia Minor, came to Faiyum to work as private secretary to Apollonius, the finance minister to Ptolemy II Philadelphus (and later to Ptolemy III Euergetes). During his employment, Zeno wrote detailed descriptions of the construction of theatres, gymnasiums, palaces and baths in the 250s and 240s BC, as well as making copious written records of various legal and financial transactions between citizens.^{[14][26][27][28]}

During the winter of 1914–1915, a cache of over 2,000 papyrus documents was uncovered by Egyptian agricultural labourers who were digging for sebakh near Kôm el-Kharaba el-Kebir. Upon examination by Egyptology scholars, these documents were found to be records written by Zeno in Greek and Demotic. These papyri, now referred to as the Zenon Archive or the Zenon Papyri, have provided historians with a detailed record of 3rd-century BC Philadelphia society and economy.^[29] The discovery site was identified as the former location of ancient Philadelphia. Today, the precise location of the town is unknown, although archaeologists have identified two sites in north-east Faiyum as the possible location for Philadelphia.^[28][30]

Modern city

Jean-Léon Gérôme, View of Medinet El-Fayoum, c. 1868–1870

Faiyum has several large bazaars, mosques,^[31] baths and a much-frequented weekly market.^[32] The canal called Bahr Yussef runs through the city, its banks lined with houses. There are two bridges over the river: one of three arches, which carries the main street and bazaar, and one of two arches, over which is built the Qaitbay mosque,^[32] a gift from his wife to honor the Mamluk Sultan in Fayoum. Mounds north of the city mark the site of Arsinoe, known to the ancient Greeks as Crocodilopolis, where in ancient times the sacred crocodile kept in Lake Moeris was worshipped.^[32][33] The center of the city is on the canal, with four waterwheels which were adopted by the governorate of Fayoum as its symbol; their chariots and bazaars are easy to spot. The city is home of the football club Misr Lel Makkasa SC, that play in the Egyptian Premier League.

Main sights

• The population of Faiyum Governorate is 4,164,914.^[34]
• The Hanging Mosque, built when the Ottomans ruled Egypt by prince Marawan bin Hatem
• Hawara, an archeological site 27 km (17 mi) from the city
• Lahun Pyramids, 4 km (2 mi) outside the city
• Qaitbay Mosque, in the city; built by the wife of the Mamluk Sultan Qaitbay
• Qasr Qarun, 44 km (27 mi) from the city
• Wadi Elrayan or Wadi Rayan, the largest waterfalls in Egypt, around 50 km (31 mi) from the city
• Wadi Al-Hitan or Valley of whales, a paleontological site in the Al Fayyum Governorate, some 150 km (93 mi) southwest of Cairo. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Climate

The Köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies its climate as hot desert (BWh).

The highest record temperatures was 46 °C (115 °F) on June 13, 1965, and the lowest record temperature was 2 °C (36 °F) on January 8, 1966.^[35]

Climate data for Faiyum
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Mean daily maximum °C (°F)	21.1 (70.0)	22.2 (72.0)	25.0 (77.0)	30.0 (86.0)	33.9 (93.0)	36.1 (97.0)	37.2 (99.0)	36.1 (97.0)	32.8 (91.0)	31.1 (88.0)	27.2 (81.0)	22.2 (72.0)	29.6 (85.3)
Daily mean °C (°F)	12.2 (54.0)	12.8 (55.0)	16.1 (61.0)	20.0 (68.0)	25.0 (77.0)	27.8 (82.0)	27.8 (82.0)	26.1 (79.0)	26.1 (79.0)	22.8 (73.0)	18.9 (66.0)	12.8 (55.0)	20.7 (69.3)
Mean daily minimum °C (°F)	6.0 (42.8)	7.2 (45.0)	9.4 (48.9)	12.8 (55.0)	17.1 (62.8)	19.5 (67.1)	21.1 (70.0)	21.4 (70.5)	19.4 (66.9)	17.1 (62.8)	13.1 (55.6)	8.2 (46.8)	14.4 (57.9)
Average rainfall mm (inches)	8 (0.3)	5 (0.2)	4 (0.2)	1 (0.0)	1 (0.0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	1 (0.0)	2 (0.1)	7 (0.3)	29 (1.1)
Average relative humidity (%)	68	63	58	50	42	46	51	57	62	64	69	72	59
Source: Arab Meteorology Book[36]

Notable people

People from Faiyum may be known as al-Fayyumi:

• Tefta Tashko-Koço (1910-1947), well-known Albanian singer, was born in Faiyum, where her family lived at that time.
• Saadia Gaon (882/892-942), the influential Jewish teacher of the early 10th century, was originally from Faiyum and often called al-Fayyumi.
• Youssef Wahbi (1898-1982), a notable Egyptian actor, well known for his influence on the development of Egyptian cinema and theater.
• Mohamed Ihab (b. 1989), Egypt's most decorated weightlifter. He is a World Champion competing in the 77 kg category until 2018 and currently in the 81 kg class.

Gallery

• 
  Qarun Palace
• 
  Temple
• 
  A whale skeleton lies in the sand at Wadi Al-Hitan (Arabic: وادي الحيتان, ‘Whale Valley’) near the city of Faiyum

See also

• Egypt portal

• List of cities and towns in Egypt
• Book of the Faiyum
• Fayum alphabet
• Faiyum mummy portraits
• Lake Moeris
• Lake El Rayan
• Phiomia (an extinct relative of the elephant, named after Faiyum)
• Nash Papyrus
• Roman Egypt
• Wadi Elrayan

Notes

1. Borrowed from Coptic Ⲫⲓⲟⲙ (Phiom) or Ⲫⲓⲱⲙ (Phiōm), from Egyptian pꜣ ym, meaning "the Sea" or "the Lake". Originally called Shedet (šd t) in Egyptian, the Greeks renamed it Κροκοδειλόπολις (Krokodeilópolis) in Koine Greek, and later Ἀρσινόη (Arsinóë) in Byzantine Greek.^[2]

References

1. "Egypt: Governorates, Major Cities & Towns - Population Statistics, Maps, Charts, Weather and Web Information". www.citypopulation.de. Retrieved 17 June 2023.
2. Paola Davoli (2012). "The Archaeology of the Fayum". In Riggs, Christina (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt. Oxford University Press. pp. 152–153. ISBN 9780199571451.
3. Gauthier, Henri (1928). Dictionnaire des Noms Géographiques Contenus dans les Textes Hiéroglyphiques. Vol. 5. p. 150.
4. "The name of the Fayum province. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven". Trismegistos.org. Archived from the original on 2012-02-29. Retrieved 2013-01-15.
5. "Faiyum. Eternal Egypt". Eternalegypt.org. Archived from the original on 2012-02-13. Retrieved 2013-01-15.
6. Caton-Thompson, G.; Gardner, E. (1934). The Desert Fayum. London: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
7. Holdaway, Simon; Phillipps, Rebecca; Emmitt, Joshua; Wendrich, Willeke (2016-07-29). "The Fayum revisited: Reconsidering the role of the Neolithic package, Fayum north shore, Egypt". Quaternary International. The Neolithic from the Sahara to the Southern Mediterranean Coast: A review of the most Recent Research. 410, Part A: 173–180. Bibcode:2016QuInt.410..173H. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2015.11.072.
8. Phillipps, Rebecca; Holdaway, Simon; Ramsay, Rebecca; Emmitt, Joshua; Wendrich, Willeke; Linseele, Veerle (2016-05-18). "Lake Level Changes, Lake Edge Basins and the Paleoenvironment of the Fayum North Shore, Egypt, during the Early to Mid-Holocene". Open Quaternary. 2. doi:10.5334/oq.19. hdl:2292/28957. ISSN 2055-298X.
9. Bagnall, Director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World Roger S. (2004). Egypt from Alexander to the Early Christians: An Archaeological and Historical Guide. Getty Publications. p. 127. ISBN 978-0-89236-796-2. Retrieved 21 November 2020.
10. Pettigrew, Thomas (1834). A History of Egyptian Mummies: And an Account of the Worship and Embalming of the Sacred Animals by the Egyptians : with Remarks on the Funeral Ceremonies of Different Nations, and Observations on the Mummies of the Canary Islands, of the Ancient Peruvians, Burman Priests, Etc. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman. p. 211.
11. Bunson, Margaret (2009). Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Infobase Publishing. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-43810997-8.
12. Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Antony; Eidenow, Esther, eds. (2012). The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford University Press. p. 171. ISBN 978-0-19954556-8.
13. Guillaume, Philippe (2008). Ptolemy the second Philadelphus and his world. Brill. p. 299. ISBN 978-90-0417089-6.
14. McKenzie, Judith; McKenzie, Rhys-Davids Junior Research Fellow in Archaeology Judith; Moorey, Peter Roger Stuart (January 2007). The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt, C. 300 B.C. to A.D. 700. Yale University Press. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-300-11555-0. Retrieved 21 April 2021.
15. Le Quien, Michel (1740). Oriens christianus: in quatuor patriarchatus digestus : quo exhibentur ecclesiae, patriarchae caeterique praesules totius orientis. ex Typographia Regia., Vol. II, coll. 581-584
16. Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), p. 840
17. Jalalipour, Saeid (2014). Persian Occupation of Egypt 619-629: Politics and Administration of Sasanians (PDF). Sasanika. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-05-26. Retrieved 2017-12-07.
18. Saadia Gaon, Tafsir (Judeo-Arabic translation of the Pentateuch), Exodus 1:11; Rabbi Saadia Gaon's Commentaries on the Torah (ed. Yosef Qafih), Mossad Harav Kook: Jerusalem 1984, p. 63 (Exodus 1:11) (Hebrew)
19. The 'Villages of the Fayyum': A Thirteenth-Century Register of Rural, Islamic Egypt, ed. and trans. by Yossef Rapoport and Ido Shahar, The Medieval Countryside, 18 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018), p. 3.
20. "History of Encaustic Art". Encaustic.ca. 2012-06-10. Archived from the original on 2012-12-23. Retrieved 2013-01-15.
21. "Egyptology Online: Fayoum mummy portraits". Archived from the original on August 8, 2007. Retrieved January 16, 2007.
22. Encyclopædia Britannica Online - Egyptian art and architecture - Greco-Roman Egypt Archived 2007-05-28 at the Wayback Machine accessed on January 16, 2007
23. Bagnall, R.S. in Susan Walker, ed. Ancient Faces : Mummy Portraits in Roman Egypt (Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications). New York: Routledge, 2000, p. 27
24. Riggs, C. The Beautiful Burial in Roman Egypt: Art, Identity, and Funerary Religion Oxford University Press (2005).
25. Victor J. Katz (1998). A History of Mathematics: An Introduction, p. 184. Addison Wesley, ISBN 0-321-01618-1: "But what we really want to know is to what extent the Alexandrian mathematicians of the period from the first to the fifth centuries C.E. were Greek. Certainly, all of them wrote in Greek and were part of the Greek intellectual community of Alexandria. And most modern studies conclude that the Greek community coexisted [...] So should we assume that Ptolemy and Diophantus, Pappus and Hypatia were ethnically Greek, that their ancestors had come from Greece at some point in the past but had remained effectively isolated from the Egyptians? It is, of course, impossible to answer this question definitively. But research in papyri dating from the early centuries of the common era demonstrates that a significant amount of intermarriage took place between the Greek and Egyptian communities [...] And it is known that Greek marriage contracts increasingly came to resemble Egyptian ones. In addition, even from the founding of Alexandria, small numbers of Egyptians were admitted to the privileged classes in the city to fulfil numerous civic roles. Of course, it was essential in such cases for the Egyptians to become "Hellenized," to adopt Greek habits and the Greek language. Given that the Alexandrian mathematicians mentioned here were active several hundred years after the founding of the city, it would seem at least equally possible that they were ethnically Egyptian as that they remained ethnically Greek. In any case, it is unreasonable to portray them with purely European features when no physical descriptions exist."
26. "Who was Zenon". apps.lib.umich.edu. University of Michigan. Retrieved 20 April 2021.
27. "Philadelpheia (Gharabet el-Gerza)". www.trismegistos.org. TM Places. Retrieved 20 April 2021.
28. "Where do the Zenon Papyri come from?". apps.lib.umich.edu. University of Michigan. Retrieved 20 April 2021.
29. About the Zenon Papyri - University of Michigan.
30. "Kôm el-Kharaba el-Kebir". iDAI.gazetteer. Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. Retrieved 21 April 2021.
31. The Mosque of Qaitbey in the Fayoum of Egypt Archived 2007-05-27 at the Wayback Machine by Seif Kamel
32. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Fayum" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 219.
33. "The Temple and the Gods, The Cult of the Crocodile". Umich.edu. Archived from the original on 2012-10-13. Retrieved 2013-01-15.
34. "الجهاز المركزي للتعبئة العامة والإحصاء". www.capmas.gov.eg. Retrieved 2024-08-13.
35. "Al Fayoum, Egypt". Voodoo Skies. Archived from the original on 24 February 2014. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
36. "Appendix I: Meteorological Data" (PDF). Springer. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016. Retrieved 14 October 2024.

External links

• "Photo Gallery: Water Issues in Fayoum Villages". Archived from the original on 2009-09-06.
• Falling Rain Genomics, Inc. "Geographical information on Al Fayyum, Egypt". Retrieved 2011-03-22.
• Fayum towns and their papyri, edited with translations and notes by Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt at the Internet Archive
• Vincent L. Morgan; Spencer G. Lucas (2002). "Notes From Diary––Fayum Trip, 1907". Bulletin 22. Albuquerque, New Mexico: New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. ISSN 1524-4156. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-07-20. Retrieved 2017-09-09.. 148 pages, public domain.
• Fayoum Photo Gallery