CHAPTER IV.
HISTORY OF THE FAYÛM PROVINCE — THE FAYÛM BEFORE LAKE MŒRIS.
The past history of the Fayûm Province was probably the following.
In the beginning, the sea covered the whole of the area which afterwards became the Nile Valley and its bordering hills. By a slow process of upheaval the dry land appeared above the level of the waters, but, in the process, what was formerly the uniform bed of the sea became an uneven surface with heights and depressions and faults.
The Nile Valley, the Fayûm and Wadi Raiân depressions were the ultimate result of this action, the formation of the Nile Valley being completed by the flow of water. At first the upper reaches of the Nile Valley held its waters at a high level by barriers of rock, but in process of time these barriers were cut through, the bed scoured out by the constant flow of water, and the water surface lowered beyond its present levels, to be again gradually raised to the levels of to-day. The lower reaches of the Nile Valley were probably at first occupied by the sea, until the yearly deposit of the floods formed the Delta, and pushed the land thus formed further and further out, forcing the sea to retire. As the surface of the Delta became raised and prolonged by successive annual deposits, the bed and water-surface of the Nile also would have risen with it, until the levels at which the Nile flowed in its lower reaches became those of the present day.
At a point in the hills dividing the Nile Valley and the Fayûm, about 10 kilometres south of Lahûn, near Sidment-el-Gebel, Dr. Schweinfurth found “the indubitable witnesses of a Pliocene sea” preserved in the form of oysters (_Ostrea cucullata_ and _Pecten_) in the white sand at about R.L. 60 to 70. (See map and Plate XXI.) The Pliocene sea, he maintains, intruded up the Nile Valley and extended on both sides of it as far as the contours of 60 to 70 metres above sea-level allowed. The place, where the oysters in the white sand were found, is situated in a flat depression on the plateau of the narrowest part of the hills separating the Nile Valley and the Fayûm. The Pliocene sea flowed here from one depression into the other, and would have succeeded in scouring away the barrier between the two depressions, if it had not been interrupted by a later upheaval or a withdrawal of the sea. In a similar manner there seems to have been made from Lahûn to Hawârah, the present communication between the Nile Valley and the Fayûm by which the Bahr Yûsuf entered to form Lake Mœris, either as an old Nile-arm or as an artificial branch of the natural arm.
Besides this passage, the desert tract on the north of it offers, as breaks in the higher ridge, several depressions, which must have been accessible to the Pliocene sea. The present railway line to the Fayûm crosses the hills at one of these depressions.
On account of the regularity of the limestone strata in the Fayûm and Wadi Raiân, a violent upheaval cannot be supposed to have been the cause that produced these two depressions, and it is more likely that they are the results of erosion and scour.
In a passage I have already quoted from Mr. Petrie’s writings, he states that in prehistoric times the Nile was a vastly greater river than it is now, due to an enormous rainfall. Let us then assume the Pliocene sea-level at R.L. 60 to 70, according to Dr. Schweinfurth, and an enormous volume of water coming down from the Upper Nile Valley according to Mr. Petrie. The sea which then invaded the Nile Valley would have been in communication with the Red Sea, and may have had a tide of 5 metres range, which would have complicated the currents, and added to the scouring action. Below Wâstah, the channel of the Nile Valley, contained between the Libyan and Arabian Hills, is much contracted. Under these conditions the floods from the Upper Nile would escape sideways through the depressions in the Libyan Hills into the Fayûm and the Wadi Raiân; into the latter by way of the Wadi Muellah, and possibly by other connections with the Nile Valley of a low enough level.
A large volume of water would thus be forced westwards out of the Nile Valley, and would find its way towards the sea to the west of Alexandria. In its endeavours to dig out a channel for itself it would erode laterally, or scour down vertically according as the softer material was found in one direction or the other. The different points of delivery and volumes of the water contributing to the flow, and the nature of the rock met with in its path would determine the form the channel would take at the various stages of its development. Tremendous eddies would be produced by projections of hard rock and contractions of the irregular channels, which would lift material from the bed and produce deep holes.
Had this action not been arrested by the further upheaval of the land, perhaps a second Nile Valley would have been formed branching from the main valley at Behnesa, passing through the Wadi Raiân and Fayûm depression, and continuing through the Wadis Fadhi and Faragh, west of Memphis and Cairo, to the Natron Lakes, and thence to the sea west of Alexandria; or returning to the Nile Valley, or side of what is now the Delta, but was then sea, at some point south of Alexandria.
If this theory is a sound one, the remarkable depressions of the Fayûm and Wadi Raiân are paralleled on a small scale by the deep holes (_bayarât_) scoured out below the bridges or cuts in the Upper Egypt Basin embankments, or outside a breach in a Nile bank.
The section, given on Plate XVIII., of 50 miles of the Nile Valley and desert opposite Cairo, is taken from Mr. Cope Whitehouse’s article, entitled “The Pyramid Hill of Gizeh,” which appeared in the ‘Quarterly’ some time ago. It shows (assuming it on Mr. Whitehouse’s authority to be a correct representation of the ground) the channels, that I have named, in the arrested state of development which they had reached, when the flow of water, which was digging them out, was cut off.
After the upheaval had raised their borders above sea-level, the sea would be henceforward excluded from the depressions and be replaced by the waters of the Nile, which would have entered by the gap in the Libyan Hills at Lahûn. The upheaval continuing and the Nile at the same time scouring out its bed, a condition of levels would have come about, under which there would have been an annual inflow during the floods and outflow into the Nile on the floods subsiding.
In a long series of years there would result a thick deposit of Nile mud in the Fayûm, the richest deposit being found near the point where the waters first spread themselves out after passing through the comparatively narrow defile in the Libyan Hills. The tendency of the entrance of the waters, heavily charged with silt, into an extended basin filled with water would be to form a delta of Nile deposit similar to that which the Nile itself has formed in entering the sea, modified by the form of the basin bed, which would not have been uniform like that of the sea. On account of the momentum of the body of water leaving the defile and entering the lake, there would be formed a projecting ridge (contour R.L. 23) of deposit in the direction of the flow, while the deposit, resulting from the end and side spills, would form in gentle slopes with approximately parallel and rounded contours (R.L. 17 to 10) on both sides, and at the end of the projecting ridge as shown in Plate XIX.
Thus, in consequence of the former action of rain on the surrounding hills, greater or less at different points along the borders according as the inclination of the adjacent watersheds was towards or away from the depression, and in consequence also of the deposition of Nile mud by the annual entry of the river flood, the bed of the lake formed in the depression would take the shape shown by the contours on the diagram of the Fayûm, Plate XIX. The former of these processes of change of the bed and borders of the depression may have ceased before the latter commenced to operate, or both may have acted simultaneously or alternately, which would account for layers of Nile mud being found near the Hawârah pyramid lying below the water-borne detritus of the hills.
From a knowledge of the rules which govern the formation of a Delta, and the consequent raising of the level of the river which forms it, we might conclude that the Nile floods in past times were not as high as they are nowadays, though on the other hand we do not know that the floods were not greater in volume, and the probability is that they were. But whatever may be the truth about former Nile levels, the levels, at which Nile deposits are found in the Fayûm, furnish evidence of the maximum height to which the flood waters rose in the Lake.
At the commencement of the passage by which the waters entered the Fayûm, the highest Nile deposit is at R.L. 26·00. At Hawârah it is at R.L. 24·50, and along the ridge reaching out towards Medineh, R.L. 23·50. Probably, therefore, the water in the Lake reached about R.L. 26·50 at the commencement of the gorge, but the level of the Lake itself rarely, if ever, exceeded R.L. 25·00.
It will be as well to determine, before going further, whether the present volumes of the Nile flood would suffice to fill the Lake Fayûm to the level of R.L. 25·00, which I have assumed it must have reached to account for the Nile deposits on its borders at R.L. 24·50.
At the time we are considering, no artificial works existed for controlling the inflow and outflow of the Lake.
We have first to determine the lowest level to which the Lake would have been lowered by the outflow and evaporation at the end of the summer, and before the next rise of the river commenced. The Nile may have flowed at a lower level then (that is, in very early prehistoric times) than now, the summer volume was probably greater then than now, as the unbreached barriers in the upper reaches would have ponded up the water into reservoirs, which, slowly emptying themselves, would have helped to raise the summer level; the flow-out also from the Fayûm Lake would have raised at its exit the level of the summer Nile, at least during the winter months, but not necessarily during the summer months, as it may have expended itself sooner. There are thus three unknown elements in the problem, and nothing to witness to the former _minimum_ levels in the same way that the Nile deposit does to the maximum levels. We are therefore forced to base the calculations on existing levels, and to suppose that the effect on the water surface of the former lower level of the Nile bed was counterbalanced by the increased volume of water flowing in the river bed. At any rate at some period sooner or later the present minimum level of the Nile must have been reached.
The probability is that the exit channel of the lake joined the Nile at or near Wâstah. Up to the end of April the rate of fall of the river exceeds the rate at which evaporation would lower a lake surface, but in May the river falls about 15 centimetres, and not at all on an average in June. Hence, up to the end of April the fall of the river would determine the rate of fall of the lake, but in May and June the fall due to evaporation would rule the rate.
R.L.
The level of the Nile at Wâstah at the end of April may be taken to be 18·75
The distance from Wâstah to Lahûn is 30 kilometres.
„ Lahûn to Hawârah 15 „ -- Total 45 „
Allowing a water surface slope for the outflow of ¹⁄₂₅₀₀₀, the difference in water surface level between the lake at Hawârah and the Nile at Wâstah would be 1·80 ----- Hence the water surface of the lake at the end of April would be at 20·55
Evaporation would still further lower the surface in May by ·25
„ „ „ June „ ·30 --- 0·55 ----- The water surface in the lake would thus become 20·00
Probably the commencement of the flow into the lake would not take place till a few days after the middle of July, which may be taken as the time when the lake reaches its lowest level for the year. Evaporation for this period of July must therefore also be allowed for, say 0·20 ----- The lowest level of the lake would therefore be 19·80
The mean surface area of the Lake Fayûm between R.L. 19·80 and 25·00 may be taken as 2000 million square metres.
Evaporation during the ninety days of flood would tend to lower the level 70 centimetres.
The quantity of water required to raise the lake from R.L. 19·80 to 25·00 would therefore be 2,000,000,000 × (5·20 + 0·70) = 11,800 million cubic metres, or a daily average for ninety days of 131,111,111 cubic metres.
At the commencement of these ninety days the inflow would be small, increasing rapidly to the maximum; and again, as the lake level rose and the Nile began to fall in October, the inflow would gradually decrease to nothing by the end of the ninety days. Hence it would probably be necessary to suppose a maximum daily discharge into the lake of about 200 million cubic metres a day for part of the time.
--+-------+------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+-- | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | +-------+------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+ | | Number of | | | | | | Years out | | | | | | of 16 in | | | | | | which the | Balance | |Corresponding| | | Supply | available |Corresponding| Gauge, | | Date. | given in | after | Gauge, Beni | Magnûnah | | | Col. 3 | allowing for | Suef. | Mouth on | | | would be | Lower Egypt. | | Nile. | | | available | | | | | | for | | | | | |abstraction.| | | | +-------+------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+ | | |million cubic | metres. | metres. | | | | metres per | | | | | | day. | | | | | | | | | |Sept. 1| 11 | 67 } | 28·08 | 26·64 | | | | } Average| | | | „ 11| 11 | 108 } 112 | 28·11 | 26·67 | | | | } | | | | „ 21| 11 | 162 } | 28·14 | 26·70 | | | | | | | |Oct. 1| 13 | 157 } | 28·14 | 26·70 | | | | } Average| | | | „ 11| 12 | 174 } 192 | 28·15 | 26·71 | | | | } | | | | „ 21| 14 | 245 } | 28·12 | 26·68 | | | | | | | |Nov. 1| 15 | 372 | 28·05 | 26·61 | | | | | | | | „ 11| 11 | 372 | 27·05 | 25·61 | | | | | | | | „ 21| 11 | 67 | 26·40 | 24·98 | | | | | | | |Dec. 1| 12 | 63 | 25·88 | 24·40 | --+-------+------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+--
Colonel Western, in a note on the Wadi Raiân, shows that for a certain number of years out of sixteen years (1872 to 1887, of which he had the statistics to work with) there is a surplus discharge in the Nile which might be abstracted without in any way interfering with the ordinary irrigation of the Delta. In his calculations he takes 565 million cubic metres in twenty-four hours as the discharge required by the Delta during September and the first half of October. He is, of course, referring to the conditions of the Delta at the present time. He gives the table which appears on the preceding page, to which I have added the corresponding gauge levels at Beni Suef and Magnûnah mouth for reference further on.
The month of August has not been given, as the conclusion was come to that there was no water to spare in August under present conditions.
The calculation, giving these figures, is made assuming that regulation on the Barrage below Cairo is not called in to assist; the discharges allowed to Lower Egypt, after abstracting the above quantities, being sufficient to give a water surface at the level required for irrigation without any heading-up. Now, the quantity required to fill the lake to R.L. 25·00, as found before, is 11,800 million cubic metres. This, let us suppose, would be made up thus:—
September 30 days at 112 millions = 3,360 millions.
October 31 „ 192 „ = 5,952 „
Parts of August and November 29 „ 86 „ = 2,494 „ ------ Total 11,806 „
These discharges could be abstracted without affecting Lower Egypt irrigation, as it exists now, for eleven years out of sixteen. This, however, is not a quite correct statement as applied to each of the eleven years, since the discharges given in the table are the _averages_ of those years in which a surplus discharge is available. Among these would be some very high years, in which it would be possible to fill the lake to a higher level than 25·00, and years when this level would not be reached.
Besides the years, for which the averages of surplus discharges are taken, there would be five years out of sixteen when the supply would fall short in September, the month of highest level.
There is no necessity in this stage to seek for a connection between the lake and the Nile for filling the lake, as the water would find its way in large volumes across all the low parts of the valley into the drainage depression along the edge of the Libyan Desert, now known as the Bahr Yûsuf.
The levels at which the Nile deposits are found in the Fayûm, the discharges which might be drawn off from the Nile, and the area of the Fayûm Lake are thus all in agreement with the supposition that the level of the Fayûm lake was yearly raised from about R.L. 20·00 to 25·00, and that the level attained was never sufficiently high to cause an overflow into the Wadi Raiân.
THE FAYÛM AS LAKE MŒRIS.
Judging then from the evidence furnished by Nile deposit and fresh-water shells, there is nothing to support the theory that there has been any _great_ change in the Nile levels since the waters first found their way into the Fayûm. But whatever conditions of levels and volumes of Nile discharges we start with, we must at some date arrive at the period of present conditions. According to Mr. Petrie, however, there is good evidence (which I will give later on) to support the theory that in Herodotus’ time the Nile levels were 2 metres lower than now, and it is further probable that, at the time of the transformation of the Lake Fayûm into Lake Mœris, the Nile volumes were what they are now. I shall, however, discuss the subject, assuming that present conditions as to Nile levels also existed at the formation of Lake Mœris, and point out afterwards how the difference of 2 metres in the level at the time of Herodotus affects the conclusions.
The formation of Lake Mœris is credited to Amenemhat III. of the XIIth Dynasty, who gained a reputation for making great improvements in the Irrigation Department, and carrying out hydraulic works of immense benefit to the country, about 2500 B.C., or within 5000 years of to-day. Now, 5000 years, geologically estimated, is a very short time, and we may assume, without much chance of error, that he had practically the same _general_ conditions to work with as regards _relative_ levels of land and water and Nile discharges as we have to-day.
The Fayûm Lake would, in his time, have filled and emptied itself, and low Niles would now and then have occurred. But even without the occurrence of a low Nile it would have been observed that during the summer, when the surface of the lake in the Fayûm had reached its lowest level, there was a considerable area of land, formed of Nile deposit, laid bare. A shining light among the king’s subjects may have conceived a project for reclaiming this land from the annual inundation, submitted his project to the king and obtained his approval to its execution.
The problem would be that, while reclaiming the land, the advantages to be derived from a natural regulator to the Nile should not be lost. The return flow which took place from the lake would, while it was uncontrolled by artificial works, be greatest when there was least benefit to be derived from a raising of the Nile water-surface; and least in the summer months, when an addition to the Nile discharge would have been most needed. The effect of the uncontrolled early return-flow might even have acted disadvantageously in checking the fall of the Nile level in December and the following winter months, and thereby delaying the draining of the lands which had been inundated by the preceding flood.
Now, although the amount of water stored in the lake might, according to the project we are considering, become less in quantity than it was before control was introduced, still by husbanding the water till the season of low Nile, when an addition to the Nile was most required, the same benefits might be obtained from the reservoir during the summer months as were felt when the lake acted under nature’s guidance only; and in addition to this, the flood water would be more quickly drained off the inundated lands, and crops be sown earlier, than would have been the case when the return-flow from the lake commenced with the fall of the Nile.
The project would then consist of works for admitting water into the lake until it rose to a certain height and then excluding any more, with the exception of about 10 to 15 million cubic metres a day, which would be required to make good the loss by evaporation over an area of about 1500 million square metres. The same work could be adapted to hold in the water on the fall of the river, and let it flow back when required; or this duty might be performed by a separate regulator. Some point between Lahûn and Hawârah would be chosen to make a bank and regulator to bar the Bahr Yûsuf passage through the hills. Probably a convenient place was found near Hawârah pyramid, close to which the Labyrinth was built.
By limiting the level of the lake to R.L. 22·50, all the area above that level, which is that of the highest plateau in the Fayûm, would be left uncovered, and fitted for cultivation and habitations.
The regulator established and the level of the water in the lake being thereby brought under control, it would be safe to commence the occupation of the reclaimed land.
All this is speculation as to how the natural Fayûm Lake became transformed into the artificially controlled Lake Mœris of Herodotus. There is little to base speculation upon, and therefore the transformation process may be varied within certain limits at the choice of the speculator.
Mr. Petrie’s views, already given at length, suggest a modification of the foregoing, which I will give as an alternative idea.
The natural drainage channel for carrying off the overflow of the Nile, now the Bahr Yûsuf, being situate in the lowest lying lands, would of necessity be kept clear by the annual discharge of the waters from the inundated lands. On reaching the south end of the isolated piece of desert in front of Lahûn, part of its discharge would go east of this island, part to the west. The western discharge would, at Lahûn, either enter the Fayûm, or part would do so and part continue northwards. At the north end of the isolated piece of desert, the discharge, going northwards, would again divide up, some of it continuing to flow in the channel under the Libyan Desert, some finding its way back to the Nile near Wâstah. Under these circumstances the channel north of Lahûn would not be so likely to keep itself clear as the channel to the south of Lahûn. Thus the channel conducting the water to the Fayûm would remain clear, while that carrying the outflow would be less likely to do so. The outflow would also be more within soil (i.e. below the land surface) than the inflow and therefore under worse conditions for keeping its channel open. The outflow channel might therefore deteriorate, and, as there would be water flowing in it during the hot season at a low velocity, reeds might grow and obstruct the water-way. The draining of the Fayûm Lake would therefore be unsatisfactorily done, and the water would stand in it at a comparatively high level till the end of the summer. This would encourage the growth of rushes also in the Lahûn-Hawârah passage, which would check the inflow, and, while preventing the rise of the lake, would favour silt deposit. “This then,” in Mr. Petrie’s words, “was the state in which the great engineering monarchs found the province:—a basin full of overflow Nile water, replenished at each inundation through a marshy shallow inlet and with much of its bottom so raised by deposits as to have become almost marsh ground, like the present lakes about the coast.”
A channel to drain off the water at low Nile and reclaim the marshes would have been the first work to suggest itself, and the necessity for regulators, to prevent any excess of water from entering by the cleared channel, would then have been felt. The flow of water in the drain leading back to the Nile may have suggested the grand idea of utilising the lake as a regulator for the excesses and shortcomings of the Nile.
Amenemhat I., who was a sportsman, and prided himself on “hunting the lion and bringing back the crocodile a prisoner,” may have chosen the point which projected farthest into the Lake (now Medinet-el-Fayûm and Kom-Faris) for the site of his palace and garden. Here he would escape from the pestilential odours that he probably kept about him in his original home, and at the same time enjoy the desert air, cooled by the immense surface of the lake, on which he could indulge his taste for crocodile hunting. The natural attractions which so rare a combination of desert air and open space of water would afford, would probably, under the royal favour, have made the new watering place and sanatorium a fashionable resort for the aristocracy, who would soon have built villas on the borders of the lake along the esplanade of Crocodilopolis, or Shed, as its first name appears to have been.
The modern Helouan, a dry treeless spot on the eastern desert a few miles south of Cairo, found favour in the eyes of the late Khedive, Tewfik Pasha, and became a sanatorium for the Cairenes, to whom a good draught of pure desert air must be a real treat after living in the tainted air of Egypt’s unsavoury capital. Helouan has sulphur springs to boast of, but Crocodilopolis had a fine expanse of sweet water to look out upon, instead of a dry, blinding and scorching desert.
The area above R.L. 22·50, at first reclaimed from the lake between Lahûn and Medineh, would have been about 10,000 acres; and the king and his favourites would, according to nature, have taken possession of it. But there would have been an extensive shore of habitable ground round the margins of the lake and on each side of the canal connecting the lake with the Nile, which would be within reach of a perpetual water supply and with the means of water transport at the door almost of the habitations.
When the attractions of Crocodilopolis and its suburbs became more appreciated and the population increased, the want of a larger area of cultivable land would be felt. There would also be another inconvenience, besides scarcity of arable land, felt by the dwellers in Crocodilopolis, arising from the yearly fall of the water surface. At high water, when the lake was filled up to R.L. 22·50, embarkation and disembarkation from boats might take place at Crocodilopolis itself, but, as the waters of the lake were allowed to flow back to the Nile, and the water level fell to R.L. 20·00 or 19·50, there would be laid bare a muddy margin of 2 kilometres breadth between the city and the water, which could with difficulty be crossed, and if crossed, the depth of water along the edge of the lake would be found too shallow to allow boats to get close to the land. One or both of these wants probably was the cause that led to the construction of the bank from the high land, east of Edwah to Biahmu, and thence, it appears probable, to Medineh. (See Plate XX.) The bank from Edwah to Biahmu runs generally along contour R.L. 17·50, and therefore would have been formed in water, probably with material transported from the high lands on the east and south-east of Edwah. This may account for the material of which the bank is formed being different from the land on either side of it, and for the absence of any trace of a borrow pit from which the bank was made. Such a bank, connected with the high land east of Edwah, running along contour R.L. 17·50 and joined from Biahmu to the high land at Crocodilopolis, would have enclosed an area, from which the lake water would have been excluded, the other two sides of the enclosure being formed by the natural ridge at the end of which Crocodilopolis was built, and by the high land connecting this ridge near Hawârat-el-Maqta with the commencement of the artificial bank at Edwah. From the levels of the rock underlying the Nile deposit at Hawârah it seems probable that the entering waters flowed in greatest volume past the Hawârah pyramid, separating the reclaimed tract from the desert on which the pyramid stands. Possibly this was the only channel by which the waters were admitted to the lake, and across which the regulator was built in the immediate neighbourhood of the Labyrinth and pyramid. The present course of the Bahr Yûsuf beyond Hawârah may have been closed and the Medineh ridge connected with the high desert on the left of the Bahr Yûsuf, near the modern head of the Gharaq canal. At present it is so connected, and the connection is only broken by artificial canals cut through it.
Thus would the second reclamation have been contrived, and it would have added about 7000 feddans of good land to the 10,000 feddans included in the first reclamation.
The Edwah bank, however, does not stop at Biahmu, but (a fact Linant did not remark) continues in its first alignment to Kalabiîn, past Saliîn and Fidimîn, to a point a little to the north of Sinrû. (See Plate XXI.) Thence it curves round towards the south, and crosses the Abûksah Railway at a point half-way between Agamiîn and Abshiwâî (Abû Ginshû). At this crossing are extensive remains of an old town on the line of the bank. The remains of several smaller towns are also to be found between the railway and the point in the bank north of Sinrû, all on the line of the bank. From this length of bank other banks at different angles to the main bank seem to have existed; some appeared to go towards Medineh, others towards Abûksah in the direction of Lake Qurûn.
Following the main bank on the other side of the railway along contour R.L. 17·50 or thereabouts, a ravine is crossed, on the far edge of which, in the line of the bank, is a peculiar black mound, formed of layers of cinders or some material that has been blackened by fire. The bank is thence traceable for about a thousand metres more, continuing in a due southerly direction, and then it is lost among the thick plantations of date-trees which commence at this point and extend to Tobhâr.
Does it double back to Medineh through Talat and Sinbat; or continue along its contour through Tobhâr, Manâshi, Disyâ, Abgig, and to the desert near Azab? (See Map at end.) There were found no traces to show. A further examination of the ground on both sides of the Abûksah Railway has thrown no light on the matter. It would appear that the traces of the bank end somewhere in the triangle formed by joining the villages of Abû Ginshû, Agamiîn, and Sinrû.
I thought it might be possible that, either from near Sinrû or west of Agamiîn, the bank was carried up the slope, at right angles to the contours, to Medineh to close the side of the new area to be reclaimed, but I looked for its traces in vain. But, _supposing_ the existence of this side-bank, the new area, enclosed by the bank joining Medineh, Sinrû (or Agamiîn), and Biahmu, and bounded also by the former bank from Biahmu to Medineh, would add about 10,000 feddans to that already reclaimed, bringing up the total to 27,000 feddans.
The want of a larger cultivable area would thus by these reclamations be partly met.
Now, as the artificial bank was formed along contour R.L. 17·50 (under the conditions assumed), and the water of the lake, as will be shown afterwards, never fell below R.L. 19·50, there would at lowest water be 2 metres depth of water up against the bank, and the most convenient point of embarkation and disembarkation for the inhabitants of Crocodilopolis on their way to Memphis would be at Biahmu, which they would reach by the road running along the top of the artificial bank formed between Crocodilopolis and Biahmu. They would take ship at Biahmu for the north-east corner of the lake, whence the desert route runs direct to Memphis. This is the direct road used to-day by the natives, who journey between Medineh (Crocodilopolis) and Bedreshên (Memphis), the road passing through Tamîyah, the site of which was, at the time that we are considering, 30 metres below water. (See Map at end.) It was therefore strictly correct to say that Lake Mœris lay between the Memphite and Arsinoïte Nomes.
The ruins at Biahmu, of which Plate XXII. shows the present condition, are not in the line of the main bank from Edwah to Kalabiîn, but about 300 metres to the north of it. It is probable, therefore, that they were placed at the end of a projecting bank, in connection with the main bank, alongside which boats could lie. The two colossal figures (Plate XXIV.) mounted on their pedestals would have formed splendid landmarks for ships crossing from the north shore of the lake.
Thus we have a vast lake of about 1600 million square metres of water surface, and an area of 27,000 feddans (acres) reclaimed from it, with Crocodilopolis in the reclaimed area, and the Hawârah pyramid and the Labyrinth on the shores of the lake at the point where the waters entering the lake were controlled. (Plates XX. and XXI.) This, I believe, was the Lake Mœris of Herodotus and of those who confirmed his testimony, and Mr. Petrie, as I have shown before, holds the same general views.
But his theory, that the two pyramids, which Herodotus stated stood about the middle of the lake, were identical with the two colossi of Biahmu, of which the present ruins are all that is left, does not appear to me a satisfactory explanation of the account of them given by Herodotus, though to what Herodotus said he was _told_ I think no importance need be attached, as statements in a foreign language are apt to be misunderstood or misinterpreted. Arab traditions also may be curious and interesting, but they are of little value as a record of the past.
It will be worth while to calculate the inflow and outflow of the lake in the condition, in which I have supposed it to be, as Lake Mœris, and to see if the existing features of the Nile Valley throw any light on the statements of the first historical witnesses to its existence.
In my former calculations of the volumes of water required to fill the Fayûm depression to higher levels, I have taken the area of the depression at 2000 million square metres. But our mean water level is now R.L. 21·00, and the area of the lake will be reduced.
The present taxed area in the Fayûm is nearly 234,000 feddans.[8] ------- The actual cultivated area is more probably about 280,000 „
The area of the Birket-el-Qurûn is about 70,000 „ ------- Total 350,000 „
350,000 feddans = 1,470,000,000 square metres.
Add the uncultivated area below R.L. 21·00 = 300,000,000 ------------- Total 1,770,000,000
Deduct areas reclaimed from Lake Mœris:—
1st reclamation 40,000,000
2nd „ 24,000,000
3rd „ 40,000,000
---------- 104,000,000 ------------- Remaining for area of Lake Mœris 1,666,000,000
or, say, 1600 million square metres.
Now let us suppose that the exit channel joins the Nile at the point where Kosheshah Escape has been built, a little above Wâstah (Plate XXI.)
The lowest summer levels at Wâstah were in 1887, 18·82; 1888, 18·12; 1889, 18·26.
Let us then call the mean L.W.L. of Wâstah 18·50.
As the exit channel would be of considerable dimensions, we may suppose a water-surface slope, at the _final_ date of outflow, of ¹⁄₅₀₀₀₀. The distance from Wâstah to Lahûn is 25 kilometres, and from Lahûn to Hawârah 10 kilometres; total 35 kilometres. The fall in this distance would then be 0·70, which would make the level at Hawârah, or the level of the lake (18·50 + 0·70 =) 19·20. But the outflow, even at the date of the lowest level of the Nile, before the rise commenced, may be assumed to have raised the Nile 30 centimetres, which would make the lowest level of the lake R.L. 19·50.
The water surface of Lake Mœris would therefore oscillate between the level of 22·50, beyond which the regulator would be used to prevent its rising, and R.L. 19·50, below which it could not fall on account of the level which the Nile maintains at its point of union with it.
On the map of Linant Pasha’s, published in 1854, before the railway and Ibrahimîyah Canal were made, the channels in the Nile Valley shown in connection with the Lahûn entrance are the Bahr Yûsuf, coming from the south, and the Magnûnah Canal going north. The latter, after going north for 13 kilometres, is joined by three channels, the first taking off from the Nile at Beni Suef, and the second and third a little south of Ashment. The third is the old Magnûnah. These channels unite in the neighbourhood of Abûsir-el-Malaq, the second passing by the village of Bûsh, the immense heap, on which the modern village stands, witnessing to the existence of an ancient town on that spot. Abûsir-el-Malaq also was evidently in the far past a place of importance. North of Abûsir-el-Malaq the channel of the Magnûnah is continued as a single channel along the west desert for 4 or 5 kilometres when it bifurcates, one branch continuing under the western desert, and the second going east to join the Nile at the point where Kosheshah Escape now stands. Some of these channels are shown on Plate XXI.
Having evidence of no other channels, let us suppose that the Magnûnah Canal with its mouth near Ashment was the feeder, the branch to Kosheshah Escape the exit channel, and the eastern branch under the western desert a canal of supply to Memphis. (The Bahr Yûsuf I do not consider as in those times a channel in _direct_ communication with the Nile.)
With R.L. 22·50 and 19·50 as the maximum and minimum levels of Lake Mœris, there would, under these circumstances and unless prevented by the use of a regulator, have been a flow into the lake from about the 15th July to the 15th January, and a return flow from the 15th January to the 15th July.
The levels of the Nile and lake would have been approximately as follows:—
R.L.
{ Lake 19·50 Lowest water levels, { when lake ceases to { Junction at Abûsir-el-Malaq 19·40 flow out and the { flow-in is about to { Magnûnah Nile mouth at Ashment 20·00 commence. { { Outlet into Nile at Kosheshah Escape 19·00
{ Lake 22·50 Water levels on 15th { January, when flow-in { Abûsir-el-Malaq 22·00 would cease and lake { return-flow would { Magnûnah mouth 23·00 commence. { { Outlet, Kosheshah 21·00
{ Lake 21·50 to 22·50 { Ordinary flood maximum { Abûsir-el-Malaq 25·30 to 27·40 levels at end of { September. { Magnûnah mouth 26·00 to 28·00 { { Outlet, Kosheshah 24·80 to 27·00
The year 1888 was one of very low Nile flood, but even in that year, from about 20th July to 15th November, the Nile level at Magnûnah mouth was above R.L. 23·00, and reached R.L. 26·00 at the top of the flood.
The quantity of water required to fill the lake from R.L. 19·50 to 22·50, and to allow for its evaporation for six months, is calculated as follows:—
Million cubic metres.
Volume required to raise lake 3 metres = 1600 million square metres × 3 4800
Volume required to make good 6 months’ evaporation = 1600 million square metres × 1·30 2080
Volume required for irrigation of 25,000 feddans reclaimed, for 6 months 100 ---- Total volume required 7580
The greater part of this would be poured in during the three months of flood, say 5000 million cubic metres in 100 days, or an average of 50 million cubic metres a day.
There now remains to be calculated the discharge that this reservoir would give back to the Nile during the low water months.
Million cubic metres.
The content of the stratum of water between R.L. 22·50 and 19·50 is 1600 million square metres × 3 4800
Of this there would be lost by evaporation during the 6 months 1600 million square metres × 1 1600 ---- There would thus remain available for purposes of irrigation 3200
The reclaimed land round Arsinoë (about 25,000 feddans) would require about 50 million cubic metres for its irrigation during the 6 months of winter and summer 50 ---- The balance available for the Nile Valley would be 3150
If we suppose this water husbanded and made use of only during the 100 days of summer, when its want is most felt, the lake would give an average daily discharge to the Nile of 31½ million cubic metres, that is, the low Nile discharges would be doubled and raised from 30 millions to 60 millions. But by a careful distribution of this stored-up water between the months of April, May, and June, and ten days of July, it would have been possible to keep up the discharges constantly to seventy millions, as shown in the table below:—
--+-----------+-------------------+-------------+----------------+-- | | Average Nile | Supplied by |Total Increased | | Month. |Discharge, without | reservoir. | Discharge. | | | reservoir. | | | +-----------+-------------------+-------------+----------------+ |March | 70,000,000 | Nil | 70,000,000 | | | | | | |April | 45,000,000 | 25,000,000 | 70,000,000 | | | | | | |May | 34,000,000 | 36,000,000 | 70,000,000 | | | | | | |June | 34,000,000 | 36,000,000 | 70,000,000 | | | | | | |July 1 to 8| 45,000,000 | 25,000,000 | 70,000,000 | --+-----------+-------------------+-------------+----------------+--
The supply from the reservoir will thus be
(36 million × 61 days) + (25 million × 38 days) = 3146 million cubic metres.
Such an increase of the summer supply would probably have the effect of doubling the area under summer crops in the Delta, if it could be obtained now, but it is not clear how it could have been utilised without a barrage to raise the water-level, and without, as far as we know, any Sêfi (summer) canals.
It is not, however, imagined that in the days of Lake Mœris there was any such scientifically economical control of the Nile waters, as supposed in the foregoing calculations, but they are given to show what the _possibilities_ of a lake under the conditions assumed would be. My aim has been to establish its utility, in answer to Linant’s argument against the developed Lake Qurûn theory, which consisted in a demonstration that this lake could have served no useful purpose, such as the historians credited it with.
Possibly the needs of navigation were a more important consideration in those days than summer irrigation, though not given the first place now. An increased volume supplied at low water to the shallowing water-routes would even for this object have been a gain.
The disappearance of all trace of the regulators is felt by some to be a difficulty in the way of the admission of their former existence, inasmuch as the ancients built on such a colossal scale. But the Labyrinth, which was built out of the reach of water, has disappeared, and its traces were only of late years identified in a mass of stone chips and trenches filled with sand, which underlay the foundations. Such being the fate of the Labyrinth, which must have surpassed the regulators as a structure of colossal dimensions, it is only natural to suppose that the stones forming the superstructure of the regulators should also have been removed for the same objects as the stones of the Labyrinth, and, if the materials of the floors were spared, it would only be on account of their situation being unfavourable to their removal. But, if spared, the action of running water would in time cause their disappearance, either by undermining them and burying them to depths below their original position, or by depositing a layer of mud above them. In the latter case they may still exist in a situation where some future excavation may chance to bring them to light again.
Hence I hold that, in the face of Strabo’s explicit statement that there were regulators at each end of the canal for controlling the inflow and outflow of the lake, the objection of want of evidence of the former existence of regulators is not sufficiently strong to be allowed to have much weight against the theory, that the submerged Fayûm, with the entry and exit of its waters kept under control by regulators, and its water-levels ranging between R.L. 22·50 and 19·50, was the Lake Mœris of Herodotus; the Arsinoïte Nome, in connection with it, consisting of the reclaimed high lands within the limits of the lake and along the borders of the lake itself and margins of the feeder canal. It is admitted, as a weak point in this theory, that unless the Arsinoïte Nome can be imagined as extending into the Nile Valley, the area of cultivable land comprised in the nome is very limited. Let us see how far such a conception of Lake Mœris is in accord with the testimony of the ancient records which relate to it.
Strabo remarks, that “the Lake Mœris, by its magnitude and depth, is able to receive the superabundance of water which flows into it at the time of the rise of the river, without overflowing the inhabited and cultivated parts of the province.” This could not be made to accord with M. Linant’s theory, and can only be understood by supposing that the _high_ lands in the Fayûm were reclaimed, and that the flood waters filled the rest of the Fayûm without rising so high as to inundate them. At the same time the area of the lake must have been great to fit it, under this limitation, to receive a sufficient volume to moderate the Nile floods and to be able to return to the Nile a sufficiently large supply to supplement the low Nile discharge in an efficient manner. The figures representing the possible performances of the lake have been given.
Diodorus also says, “Accordingly the king dug a canal from the Nile to the basin 10 miles in length and 300 feet in breadth.” This would seem to show that the canal took off from the Nile immediately opposite Lahûn, for, if its mouth had been carried further south up the Nile, its length would have exceeded 10 miles. The breadth of 300 feet equals 91½ metres. This also agrees with the size of the inflow and outflow canals which would have been necessary to discharge the calculated volumes.
A canal with bed width 90 metres, depth 8 metres, and water surface slope ¹⁄₂₀₀₀₀, will discharge about 69½ million cubic metres per 24 hours, which agrees with the calculation for the inflow.
A canal with bed width of 90 metres, depth 6½ metres, and water surface slope of ¹⁄₂₅₀₀₀, would discharge 34 million cubic metres per 24 hours, which agrees with the calculations for the outflow.
Diodorus remarks also that “a little south of Memphis a canal was cut for a lake, brought down in length from the city 40 miles.” This is somewhat obscure, but may mean that a canal 40 miles in length was dug to connect Memphis with the lake. Supposing the canal that fed the lake from the Nile passed Abûsir-el-Malaq as already described, the canal to connect the lake and Memphis would have taken off from the feeder canal at or near Abûsir-el-Malaq. The distance from that point to the modern Bedreshên, the station at which tourists alight for viewing the ruins of Memphis, is 47 miles, and it is quite possible that what was known as Memphis extended several miles to the south, and that the canal was only 40 miles in length between Abûsir-el-Malaq and Memphis.
Herodotus states that the lake is six months filling and six months emptying. With the surface level of the lake limited to R.L. 22·50, and with the mouth of the feeder canal near Ashment and the outflow at Kosheshah Escape, such would be the case, for though the lake might be filled during the months of flood to R.L. 22·50, there would still be a flow into the lake for the remainder of the six months to meet loss by evaporation.
On the shores of the Lake Mœris would stand the Labyrinth with its pyramid (Hawârah), and within the lake area Crocodilopolis or Arsinoë (Medinet-el-Fayûm). The lake would serve as a moderator for the Nile in flood, and would supplement the short supply of the river in summer. It would have had a perimeter of 220 kilometres against Herodotus’ perimeter of 360 kilometres, assuming that Jomard and others were right in supposing that Herodotus made use of the little stadius. The greatest depth of the lake, when filled to R.L. 22·50, would have been at least 70 metres against Herodotus’ depth of 92 metres.
The lake itself was not artificially made, as supposed by Herodotus, but was brought under control by the works of man.
The water in the lake came from the Nile and not from local sources.
The lake lay between the Arsinoïte and Memphite Nomes.
Herodotus and others after him state that there existed two pyramids, crowned by colossal statues, centrally situated in the lake, and Herodotus thus describes them:—“The lake lies oblong north and south, being, in its deepest part, 50 fathoms deep. It tells its own story that it is artificially made, for about the middle of the lake stand two pyramids, each rising above the surface of the water 50 fathoms, and that part of them which is built under water being as much more. On the top of each (or _against_ each, according to Cope Whitehouse’s translating) is a colossal figure seated on a throne. So these pyramids are 100 fathoms high.”
It is supposed by some that the ruins at Biahmu (Plate XXII.) are the remains of what Herodotus described as pyramids. Possibly they are, but it seems a somewhat feebly supported supposition. Though a colossus on the top of a pyramid is not what one would expect to find there, and the dimensions of the pyramids given by Herodotus are, of course, obtained second-hand and may be worthy of little reliance, still the evidence, that the Biahmu ruins are the remains of what he referred to, does not seem to me convincing.
Mr. Flinders Petrie considers that these ruins are the remains of what was once a place of embarkation and disembarkation on the lake, consisting of a flight of steps, flanked by two colossi raised on high pedestals. In one of his publications he has pictorially reproduced these colossi, their pedestals and enclosure walls, in a most complete manner (Plate XXIII.), his only personal acquaintance with the figures consisting of a broken nose and fragments of stone drapery, discovered among the débris of their ruins. To one of the uninitiated, even after studying the evidence adduced by Mr. Petrie, there appears to be a great deal of esoteric ingenuity or imagination in the process of reproduction, but one or the other of these gifts is a necessity in dealing with anything Egyptological on account of the incompleteness of the historical records. Plate XXIII. gives a reproduction of Mr. Petrie’s restoration, and Plate XXII. is from a photograph of the ruins as they exist now. The reduced levels have been added by me.
In Mr. Petrie’s restoration he has shown the worshipper down below, standing on the general country level. My idea is that the interior of the courtyard was filled up to the level of the surrounding wall and formed a landing-place, as I have indicated in Plate XXIV. by the upper figure and the boats. If the water stood up against the courtyard wall, as I have shown, since there is no mortar in the joints of the masonry, the man below (as shown in Mr. Petrie’s unmodified representation) would have been drowned out.
This landing-place was probably connected at the back by a bank with the main bank running through Biahmu.
It appears that some say that the lake waters flowed into and out of the lake by one and the same channel, and that others say there were two canals, one for the inflow and another for the outflow. These two accounts may be reconciled by supposing that the former referred to the canal south of Abûsir-el-Malaq, which is a single canal, Plate XXI., and that the latter referred to the channels, one of which was for the inflow from the Nile near Ashment, to Abûsir-el-Malaq, and the other for the outflow from Abûsir-el-Malaq to Memphis or perhaps to the point on the Nile where Kosheshah Escape stands. Strabo is obscure on this point. He writes:—“Then follows the Heracleöte Nome, in a large island, near which is the canal on the right hand, which leads into Libya, in the direction of the Arsinoïte Nome; so that the canal has two entrances, a part of the island on one side being interposed between them.” Possibly this refers to the isolated bit of desert in front of and to the east of Lahûn, which is “a part of the island” interposed between the Bahr Yûsuf coming from the south and passing to Lahûn on the left of the island, and the Magnûnah canal or special lake-feeder, which passes on the right of the island, turns south towards Lahûn and leads into Libya in the direction of the Arsinoïte Nome.
I have consulted Smith’s ‘Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography,’ to find out what the editor considered to be the accepted views about Lake Mœris in 1868. Under “Mœris Lacus” I find that the views stated agree in the main with those favoured in this paper. Linant’s theory is not referred to, and probably had not been heard of by the editor. The following passage about the connecting canal occurs in the Dictionary, which can hardly be made to refer to the Bahr Yûsuf as the main lake-feeder, though assumed to do so in the passage itself:—“There are grounds for supposing that ancient travellers did not always distinguish between the connecting canal, the Bahr Yûsuf, and Mœris itself. The canal was unquestionably constructed by man’s labour, nor would it present any insuperable difficulties to a people so laborious as the Egyptians. If, then, we distinguished, as Strabo did, the canal from the lake, the ancient narratives may be easily reconciled with one another and with modern surveys. Even the words of Herodotus may apply to the canal, which was of considerable extent, beginning at Hermopolis (Ashmunîn) and running four leagues west, and then turning from north to south for three leagues more, until it reaches the lake.”
Now the old Magnûnah Canal, with its mouth on the river near Ashment, goes west for a little over three leagues to Abûsir-el-Malaq, and then turns _from north to south_ for three leagues till it reaches Lahûn. (Plate XXI.) As it is a remarkable thing to find a canal in the Nile Valley which runs from north to south, the near agreement of these figures and directions is a remarkable coincidence, if it is nothing more.
There is another coincidence which may well be accidental, but is worth noticing. Arab tradition is, I believe, the authority for placing the mouth of the connecting canal at Ashmunîn. “Joseph collected workmen and dug the canal of Menhi from Ashmunîn to el-Lahûn.”
Now the mouth of the old Magnûnah Canal, which I have been supposing may have been the canal of inflow, had one of its mouths near “Ashment.” Can a misprint have been responsible for “Ashment” being changed into “Ashmunîn,” or may it not have been changed during the process of handing down the tradition orally, the name of the larger town Ashmunîn being substituted when the lesser Ashment lost its importance and its notoriety after Lake Mœris ceased to be?
But all these speculations must be modified, _but not more than modified_, if what follows is a more correct view of the conditions of the Nile at the time of Herodotus.
Hitherto I have assumed that the levels of maximum and minimum Nile were the same in his time as they are now.
But it is supposed that the Nile levels at that time were about 2 metres lower than they are now, and it is necessary to consider in what way such a change of conditions would modify the views of what Lake Mœris was and did, as given in the foregoing arguments and calculations.
The supposition, or certainty, that the Nile in the time of Herodotus was about 2 metres lower in level than it is now, is based on the following observations, which Mr. Petrie has given me. He estimates that the rate of rise has been about 4 inches a century. This, he states, is shown by a Roman wall at Tanis and by the town-level of Naukratis, both old towns in Lower Egypt. The old tombs at Memphis are now under water. At Edfu the High Nile rises shoulder high on the walls, which shows a rise of 4 inches or more per century. At Aswân (Assouan) the records of High Niles on the Roman Nilometer show that they were lower than now by an amount calculated at a rate of 4 inches per century.
There is also, Mr. Petrie adds, other evidence of the same sort, but less definite, giving the same general result.
If now we suppose the Fayûm (Lake Mœris) filled to R.L. 20·50 and emptied to R.L. 17·50, there is nothing to be changed in the calculations, except the maximum and minimum surface levels of the lake. Thus there would be a rather, but not much, larger area reclaimed and the Edwah-Biahmu bank would have been formed along the edge of the lake at lowest water, instead of in two metres of water. This modified view of its formation would seem to be more probable than that which supposed it to have been formed in water.
If, however, we suppose the lake still filled to R.L. 22·50 as a maximum, while its lowest level reached R.L. 17·50, the discharges found to have been necessary to fill the lake (under the conditions previously assumed excepting as regards minimum level), must be increased by 50 per cent., and the figures representing the return-flow be doubled.
In all probability the maximum level of the lake was somewhere between R.L. 22·50 and 20·50, and may be taken as varying from R.L. 22·00 to 21·00.
The lake may have been chiefly filled by the Bahr Yûsuf and the flood waters inundating the Nile Valley, but, to fulfil the conditions of a six months’ flow-in and six months flow-out of the lake, under the new conditions supposed, and retaining a maximum lake-level of R.L. 22·50, the canal of supply would have to have its off-take from the Nile moved to a point about half-way between Beni Suef and Biba. Supposing the Bahr Yûsuf and the flood water of the Nile Valley filled this lake during the flood months and the Bahr Yûsuf ceased to flow with the end of the flood, the canal from between Beni Suef and Biba would have had to supply only about 10 million cubic metres a day to make good the loss by evaporation, if the lake-level was not to be allowed to fall below R.L. 22·50 till the return-flow to the Nile was required. But there is no reason to suppose this to have been a necessity. With a lowest level of 17·50 instead of 19·50, the problem of the lake as a relieving and supplementing reservoir to the Nile, with houses and cultivation above its highest levels, is much simplified, and a large margin is given between R.L. 20·50 and 22·50 for increasing the volumes given in my former calculations, to render the lake a more efficient safety-valve for excessive floods, and for moderating the fall of the Nile to low discharges by giving back to it a more abundant outflow.
Accepting this view of the range of the lake-levels, we shall have to look upon the Magnûnah Canal and its branches as channels of return-flow to the Nile for the commencement of the period of outflow, which would afterwards cease to carry any discharge in summer, when the lake-level had fallen below about R.L. 19·00. For the remaining period of outflow the Kosheshah Escape branch from Abûsir-el-Malaq to the Nile and the branch to Memphis skirting the Libyan Hills, would have carried all the discharge returning to the Nile Valley.
The peculiar isolated piece of Nile desert opposite Lahûn and the cultivated strip of land between it and the main desert, through which the Bahr Yûsuf flows into the Fayûm, seems to lend itself to the regulation of the entry and exit of the Nile waters. To control the entry of the waters a regulator A and cross bank _a b_ from the island desert across the Bahr Yûsuf to the main desert on the west could have been made. (See map, Plate XXI.)
The excess water, excluded from the lake by regulation on A, would have found its way along the east of the patch of desert as it does to-day.
To retain and to control the exit of the water, a regulator B and its bank _c d_ might have been added, where shown on the map, or anywhere between B and the end of the narrow band of cultivation at C. There is, however, no evidence to show that such works did exist, but Strabo’s statement, the presence of the Lahûn pyramid and the situation of the villages Lahûn and Manshîyah make it perhaps probable that there were some important works connected with the lake in their neighbourhood.
The reason for the peculiar alignment of the present bank _g_ D B _c_ which closes the gap into the Fayûm, is difficult to imagine, as the bank is at least three times the length it would have been, if it had been formed in a direct line across the gap. But it has suggested itself to me, that the length B _c_ may be part of the original bank _d_ B _c_, that may have crossed from side to side of the valley of exit, and on which the villages of Lahûn and Manshîyah were built.
Trying to find some explanation for the alignment of the existing bank, it had also occurred to me, that the line of the bank may have followed the ridge of the bar, that would have been formed across the wider part of the entrance to the Fayûm by the high level water flowing in. This bar would, if it had existed, have been the first land to show above water on the subsidence of the floods, and may have been chosen, on the occasion of one of the repeated breaches at Hawârat-el-Maqta, as the most convenient line for forming a bank to shut out the Nile flood. But this would have been at a later date, after Lake Mœris had ceased to perform its functions of a Nile regulator.
However, I think the former supposition, that the bank B _c_ was part of an old bank, formed for quite another than its present purpose, and that the bank _g_ B was subsequently made between Lahûn and the desert (perhaps when the existing old Lahûn regulator was made), a more likely explanation. The length B _d_ would have disappeared after it ceased to perform any useful function.
There may have been both, or one, or neither of the regulators A and B, but if there was a regulator at Hawârah at the head of the lake at F, there would have been little to be gained except additional security from the regulator A.
If then we suppose that the bank _c_ B _d_ and the regulator B only existed to collect the flood waters, and turn them into the lake, and that a regulator at Hawârah at F also existed to keep excess water out of the lake, such an arrangement would agree with Strabo’s statement that “when the river falls, the lake again discharges the water by a canal at both orifices, and it is available for irrigation. There are regulators at both ends of the canal for regulating the inflow and outflow.”
The part A _b_ of one of these suggested banks exists to-day, as a lately abandoned basin bank, with regulators in it, but there is nothing, that I know of, to show that it existed in the time of Lake Mœris. At the western desert end, _a_, of the supposed bank, stands the village Tamma. Dr. Schweinfurth says this is certainly an ancient Egyptian name, and he describes some remarkable mounds of pure black Nile earth, containing no trace of bricks, sherds, stones from buildings, or other things, which lie just to the south of the modern village in four symmetrically placed hills, containing about 300,000 cubic metres.
Possibly the ancient Tamma was in some way connected with Lake Mœris, but the riddle of the mounds has not yet been solved. They appeared to me to be the remains of the mouth of a canal taking off from a bend of the Bahr Yûsuf, but the great height and contour of the mounds and the abruptness with which they commence and terminate are not to be easily accounted for. The alignment of the canal, if such it was, points towards the entrance valley to the Fayûm.
On the east of Lahûn village there are also some mounds of moderate height, but of short length, which are evidently the remains of two old parallel canals, both pointing in the direction of the Fayûm. The abruptness with which these banks begin and end is also remarkable.
Supposing then, that the Nile levels in the time of Herodotus were 2 metres lower than those of to-day, the conception of Lake Mœris must be modified as follows:—
The lowest level to which Lake Mœris fell in summer was R.L. 17·50 above mean sea, and it was filled to levels ranging between R.L. 20·50 and 22·50, but its level was never allowed to exceed the latter level. Probably there was a regulator and bank passing through Lahûn from west to east between the main and detached desert preventing the flow of the Bahr Yûsuf waters to the north, and so diverting them into Lake Mœris; and also another regulator at Hawârah to forbid the admission of an excessive volume into the lake (Plate XXI.). On each side of this latter regulator may have been sluices, on the right to feed a canal to irrigate during flood time the high land, between Hawârah pyramid and the present railway line, along the course of the old Bahr Wardan; and on the left to admit water into the reclaimed tract round about Crocodilopolis, perhaps along the present course of the Bahr Yûsuf, for irrigation and navigation.
The old Edwah-Biahmu-Sinrû bank, instead of having been formed in water, would have been thrown up along the edge of the water when at its lowest level. The Biahmu landing-place would have been projected into the lake to obtain a quay for embarkation and disembarkation and possibly a channel would have been dug between the two colossi, so that boats might come alongside even at low water; a channel about 2 metres deep being sufficient.
The Edwah-Sinrû bank would have been subjected to most severe wave action, and could not have stood, unless we suppose it to have been well revetted with stone on the lake face. Probably it was, but the stone has entirely disappeared, a thing not incredible, when one considers how little has been left of the wonderful Labyrinth described by Herodotus and others after him.
But if the conclusion, that the Nile water-levels have risen at the rate of 4 inches a century, be a correct one, and if it may be assumed that the rise has been continuous and uniform in historic times, the levels at the time of the XIIth dynasty (B.C. 2500), when Lake Mœris is supposed to have been formed, would have been about 4½ metres lower than at present. Under such conditions R.L. 23·50 would have been the highest level reached by the floods at the Lahûn entrance; and therefore, at the site of the modern Medineh, the water-level would have been somewhat lower. Such a state of things would have permitted the establishment of the town “Shad” without the necessity of any arrangements for controlling the admission of the water. To what minimum levels the Nile fell, after it had first flowed at higher levels, and how far back the change from a deepening of its bed by scour to a raising of it by deposit took place is a geological question; but if the Nile flood maximum ever fell as low as about R.L. 18·00 at the Lahûn entrance, no water would have entered the Fayûm, since the rock bed at Hawârah is somewhere about this level. (Linant’s Hawârah sill at R.L. 21·00 is known to be higher than the bed of the natural channel, which runs between the village of Hawârat-el-Maqta and the Hawârah pyramid.)
Imagination thus may draw another picture of a time when, after the Fayûm deposit had been laid down by the Nile flowing at high levels, the gradual scouring of the Nile bed lowered the flood water surface to such an extent that the supply, which kept the Fayûm Lake full, was gradually shut off, until, at last, the maximum flood level falling below that of the lowest rock surface between Lahûn and Hawârah, no water would have flowed into the Fayûm, and the lake would have dried up and left the land barren for want of a water supply.
After the opposite action set in and the Nile levels rose again, the flow into the Fayûm would recommence and gradually increase century by century, until at last levels would be reached favourable to the establishment of the town “Shad” on the site of the modern Medineh.
The Nile continuing to rise, protecting banks to keep the waters of the lake, when at flood levels, from the cultivation and habitations would have been found necessary, and at last the capital itself would have been threatened by the gradually increasing level reached by the highest floods. Then, if not before, measures to regulate the inflow and to facilitate the outflow would be taken to protect the highest parts of the province from submersion, and means such as those suggested before would be resorted to to reclaim some of the invaded lands.
Since the foregoing was written, Brugsch Pasha, a leading Egyptologist, has delivered a lecture in Cairo to the Khedivial Geographical Society on the 8th April, 1892, from which I quote the following passage, showing that the Pasha’s conclusions, drawn from a study of the monuments, agree with the conclusions I have arrived at from a study of the levels and features of the ground in the neighbourhood of Hawârah.
“Nul doute que le vaste gouffre de 20-30 mètres de hauteur qui s’ouvre entre les bords occidentaux du désert de Hawara et les terrains cultivés du côté opposé est, qui, maintenant, porte le nom de “la Mer sans eau” (_Bahr-bela-ma_) formait anciennement une partie du lac Mœris. C’est ainsi que ce dernier avait acquis fortuitement une signification funéraire en rapport avec le culte des morts, qui, d’après la tradition en vogue chez les anciens Égyptiens, devaient passer en bateau le Nil ou un lac pour aborder au port de la nécropole et à l’entrée du monde souterrain. Hawara représentait depuis les temps de la XIIme dynastie le cimetière de la ville Crocodilopolis-Arsinoë, près de Medinet-el-Fayoum; les défunts étaient transportés sur les canaux jusqu’au lac, qu’ils traversaient pour arriver au port de la nécropole. Les textes que j’ai consultés lors de mon dernier séjour à Hawara, ne parlent de la terre du lac qu’en la mettant en rapport avec l’Osiris de la nécropole de Hawara.
“Un canal principal (ou si l’on veut plusieurs peut-être) conduisait l’eau du lac au pied du plateau de Hawara vers la métropole qui, à l’époque des Pharaons, s’appelait “Shad” et dont l’existence remonte au moins jusqu’au règne d’Amenemhê Ier, le fondateur de la XIIme dynastie. Les dernières fouilles que j’ai exécutées à Médineh, mettent ce fait hors de doute. Il paraît même que l’ancienne ville de Shad formait la résidence des rois de cette dynastie, dont les pyramides s’élèvent sur le sol de la terre du lac.”
This statement about the principal canal (or several canals), leading from the lake at the foot of Hawârah towards “Shad,” accords with my conceptions of the lake, but not with Linant’s; as in _his_ theory all this plateau between Hawârah and the modern Medineh, or ancient Shad, was lake, and a canal or canals could not have been made in the lake itself. If then this fact about a canal leading from the lake at the foot of Hawârah to Shad is proved beyond a doubt, Linant’s theory is disproved by Brugsch Pasha himself, though he previously states that no “savant sérieux” is opposed to it.
In this same paper, from which I am quoting, this further passage also occurs, which agrees with what I have imagined to have been the early history of the town, on part of the ruins of which Medineh now stands.
“La terre du lac, ainsi que je l’ai déjà fait remarquer, a dû exister au commencement de la XIIme dynastie, dont le premier roi, Amenemhè Ier, avait fondé au bord de la ville Médineh un sanctuaire au Dieu Sobk. Au delà de cette époque je ne trouve aucune trace de sa mention dans les textes de l’ancien empire: l’œuvre de l’arrosement du Fayoum par un canal du Nil doit donc être reportée au moins jusqu’à l’époque du roi que je viens de citer. Également à cette époque, la fondation d’un sanctuaire et d’un palais royal fait supposer l’existence d’une résidence, c’est-à-dire d’une grande ville à laquelle le canal Hounet fournissait ses eaux.
“Tout porte à croire que le canal fut creusé longtemps avant le XIIme dynastie, car une résidence ne s’établit pas dans un pays inhabitable ou qui venait à peine d’être arrosé. L’opinion que les rois de la XIIme dynastie doivent être regardés comme les créateurs du canal Hounet n’est plus à soutenir, le Fayoum ‘la terre du lac’ date certainement d’une époque de beaucoup antérieure à la XIIme dynastie, et les rois de cette maison royale, pour des raisons que nous ignorons, ont seulement choisi cette terre pour y transférer leur résidence et les temples de leurs divinités.”
How this view is made to accord with the Linant Lake conception is not clear, but it is not opposed to the idea that a natural lake, connected by a natural channel with the Nile Valley, existed and made the growth of the town “Shad” a possibility before the canal was remodelled, and control of the entry and exit of the waters introduced by the engineering monarchs of the XIIth dynasty.
TRANSFORMATION OF LAKE MŒRIS INTO THE FAYÛM OF TO-DAY.
Assuming that the conception of Lake Mœris, as given in this paper, is a true one, we have now to consider how the change to present conditions in the Fayûm came about.
In the passage quoted from ‘Hawara, Biahmu, and Arsinoë,’ Mr. Petrie states that “apparently under the Persians or Ptolemies the desire to acquire more land in the Fayûm at the expense of the irrigation of the Nile valley, led to restricting the inflow, and gradually drying up the lake.”
Mr. Cope Whitehouse, in one of his papers, points out that Mœris, in its character of regulator and reservoir, existed chiefly for remote provinces, and therefore required for its maintenance a strong central government with sufficient administrative skill and energy to take the necessary steps and to expend the necessary amount of money to secure the maintenance of the reservoir, canal, and regulators in working order. Under a careless government, or while anarchy, or internal or external troubles weakened administration, the private interests of individuals who were on the spot to assert themselves, would have prevailed over the public claims of the Northerners, powerless to keep watch over and to insist upon their rights from the distant towns of the Delta. A corrupt Public Works Department, uncontrolled by a chief with broad views of what was desirable in the general interests of Egypt, may have permitted each chief engineer of a nome to do what seemed good in his own eyes for the profit of the particular part of Egypt in which he was the Public Works officer. If we imagine that he had scruples, there have not been absent, in the modern history of the Irrigation Department of Egypt, instances of the application of means for overcoming scruples, and, as so much else in the customs of the country can be traced back to that far past time when Lake Mœris must have been languishing towards extinction, we may also suppose that the Eastern salve for tender consciences was applied and the scruples overcome.
But whatever the cause (and there is nothing but speculation, which can help us to imagine it), at some time or other, either by a gradual or sudden process, Lake Mœris ceased to perform its offices of regulator and reservoir, which had won for it the admiration of all who visited it. Having once reached the stage when it ceased to be useful in supplementing the low Nile, there would be nothing to prevent measures being taken to exclude all water, but such as was necessary for the irrigation of the reclaimed areas. Evaporation would lower the Lake level year by year, and leave more land uncovered. Year by year the Lake would contract itself, and retire to lower levels, until it had reached the present dimensions of the modern Lake Qurûn, whose water surface at the commencement of May 1892 was 43·50 metres below mean sea-level. The rate of the lake’s retreat was doubtless not uniform and continuous, but was retarded by accidents and breaches of the barrier, raised against the Nile floods, causing a return of the water over reclaimed lands. The deep ravines of the Fayûm are nature’s bold strokes on the face of the province, which record some of the victories of the water, in its efforts to fulfil the law imposed on it to find its own level, over man’s endeavours to control this law.
Evaporation by itself, had its results not been vitiated by other causes, would have lowered the lake surface by about 2 metres a year, but the drainage and waste from the reclaimed area under irrigation would have retarded the fall, and breaches would probably have occasionally converted the fall into a rise. It is therefore difficult to assign dates for different levels of the lake surface, but probably the old towns at different levels around the borders of the Fayûm, so far as their dates can be fixed, will, when their levels have been correctly ascertained, throw some light on this subject.
The former manner of conducting the irrigation of parts of the province would have caused a much larger proportionate discharge into the lake, than finds its way to it at present. Considerable areas were enclosed by banks, and inundated under the Basin system, known in the Fayûm as “Malaq,” in contradistinction to irrigation by small field channels, a system called “Misqâwi.” The contents of these small basins, when emptied, flowed into the lake. On the south side of the Fayûm there was, until late years, a large basin known as “Hod-el-Tuyûr” (the Basin of the Birds), which was formed by building an immense wall across a fold of contour R.L. 15·00. The top of this wall is about R.L. 16·00. The bed of the basin is at R.L. 12·00, so we may conclude that, when this wall was built, the lake levels must have been at any rate below R.L. 12·00. This basin was abolished in 1886, and ordinary perennial irrigation introduced over the area formerly included within the basin limits. Since then the fall of the lake surface has been more rapid, in spite of its annually diminishing evaporating area.
The existing lake, which is the rudiment of the large lake that once filled the whole of the Fayûm depression, is called Lake Qurûn, or el-Qurn, the Lake of the Horns, or the Horn, apparently so named from a rock that projects into the lake from its west side and called “el-Qurn.”
It is evident, from the levels of the rock bed underlying the Nile deposit near Hawârah, that the original course of the waters flowing into Lake Mœris (after it became Lake Mœris by introducing means of controlling its waters) must have been along the ravine which runs to the north of the modern village of Hawârat-el-Maqta. The bed of the present Bahr Yûsuf, at a point about a kilometre below that village, is rock at R.L. 21·00, and this rock joins the high desert on the south of the Bahr Yûsuf. But on the north it dips down, and close under Hawârat-el-Maqta has been found to have its original surface at R.L. 19·17, dipping still lower towards the north-east. Plate XXV. gives cross-sections of the entrance valley of the Fayûm, and also of the ravine behind Hawârat-el-Maqta.
“Hawârat-el-Maqta” signifies “Hawârah of the Breach,” and round about this village lay the battlefields where many a struggle was made by man to get the mastery of the water, until he at last prevailed. Massive walls and solid banks, retaining the Bahr Yûsuf in its high level channel, and barring the passage into ravines, scoured out by previous torrents of water bursting away from control, mark the sites of many a breach, and suggest sleepless and anxious nights of hard labour for the wretched irrigation officer in charge in the days when the water seemed to have asserted its rights to flow where it pleased.
On the left of the Bahr Yûsuf are the remains of a channel, which was clearly a temporary one for carrying the water, while a breach near Hawârat-el-Maqta was being repaired. Linant Pasha tells of the occurrence of one of these breaches on the west of Hawârat-el-Maqta as late as the commencement of this century (in 1819 or 1820). He states that this breach caused much damage. An attempt was made to close it during the floods, but in spite of all that could be done, and in spite of the energy of the people employed by Mehemet Ali, it was not till after six months at the time of low water that the closure was effected. It appears that the old bridge at Lahûn (the only one existing at the time) could not be closed, when the breach occurred, probably for want of suitable closing apparatus. This breach was down-stream of the rock bed in the Bahr Yûsuf.
When the level of Lake Mœris was kept up to levels above R.L. 17·50, the regulator at Hawârah near the Labyrinth, which I have supposed controlled the entry of the water into the lake, would have admitted the flood waters freely until the lake rose to the maximum allowable, say R.L. 22·00. If then closed, and supposing the Nile levels to have been 2 metres lower then than now, the regulator would probably have been subjected to a head of about 3 metres as a maximum, but afterwards when Lake Mœris ceased its functions and the lake fell to low levels, the regulator would have had to hold up a head of water equal to the depth of water on its floor, in order to exclude the water from the lake. The right and left side channels would have taken in water from above the regulator for irrigating the reclaimed tracts. The drainage of the irrigated areas would have commenced to form drainage channels, the right drainage following the bed of the original inflow channel into Lake Mœris. As the lake level continued to fall, the drains would have scoured themselves out to lower levels, and cut back. The canals too would then have breached into the deepening ravines.
On the opposite sides of the ravine and in face of the village of Hawârat-el-Maqta, during one of my inspections, I came across the remains of two ancient canals, shown on the sketch map, Plate XXVI. Starting from the present edge of the ravine are two old canals, clearly distinguishable as such by the existing banks, which are of considerable height. In the angle between the two are the remains of an ancient town, and fragments of granite pillars. One of these fragments was part of the shaft of a large pillar of the clustered-stalk design.
Both these canals, after a few hundred yards, lose themselves in broken ground sloping down and tailing into the main ravine.
Probably the left canal was the first made, and, when it breached into the ravine on its left, the right canal was made to take its place, which in its turn also breached and found its way into the ravine. The take-off was then shifted farther up the Bahr Yûsuf to the position of the present head of the Bahr Sêlah. The dotted lines show the supposed continuations of the two old canals. To feed them, either the ravine must have been dammed below their present take-off from it, or else they must have been continued across the head of the ravine to the banks of the Bahr Yûsuf. The fact that the second diversion diverges from the old canal just where it leaves the ravine, suggests the former alternative, but more probably this was made the point of departure from the first channel so as to utilise the banks, which already existed, for crossing the ravine and avoid the necessity for making a new crossing.
Joined on to the breached end of the left canal there exist some curious vestiges of irrigation works, which have failed. It appears that there was originally an earth dam A B joining the banks of one or other of these two old canals with a point in the direction of or across the ravine. In the line of this bank where the height was greatest, was a thick masonry wall, now known as “Hêt Rozma.” This wall is made of brick and rubble stone of a very inferior quality, built in mortar made of lime and mud; it is 90 metres in length, 5 metres thick, and 6·70 metres high. (The top of this wall is at R.L. 21·35.) The bare end of the wall is evidently the original masonry end, as it was built, no part of the wall having been carried away when the bank, which must have joined its outer end, disappeared. The bank, of which this wall formed the centre, evidently breached and scoured out a hole, marked by the pool C below the breach. This breach was repaired by adding an inclined wall D E to the Hêt Rozma, continued by an earth bank E F to the bank of the old left canal. Again another bank G F seems to have been formed above this, and to have breached. The violent action of the water is shown by the circular hollow H, which has been scooped out of the level ground _upstream_ of this breach.
I give this description to indicate what interesting problems there are to solve, or lose oneself in conjectures about, in various parts of the Fayûm Province, and especially in the neighbourhood of Hawârat-el-Maqta and the wonderful Labyrinth.
Given then the actual conditions of a considerable difference of level, continually increasing, between the water at its entrance to the Fayûm, and the lake surface, and, from an irrigation point of view, a steep surface slope to the country under irrigation, ravines would commence to form along the lines where drainage and the water, discharged by canal breaches, would collect to flow towards the lake. Wherever also an inundated area, surrounded by banks, effected the discharge of the water contained in the basin, there would be made the beginning of a ravine, which may afterwards have been utilised as an irrigation or drainage channel.
The main drainage lines of the north and south were naturally formed along the lines, where the rounded concentric contours of the central part of the Fayûm double back to run along the north and south sides of the depression, as shown in the diagram (Plate XIX.). At many points the rock being reached, further deepening of the channel was checked. The rock being close to the surface along the upper part of the course of the south main drainage line, a deep ravine has not been formed, until after the village of Miniet-el-Hêt is passed.
But the north drainage line has been scoured out and cut back to the banks of the Bahr Yûsuf itself, so that deep ravines exist within a short distance of and parallel to its present watercourse. Into these ravines a breach would precipitate all the main canal supply, if such were to occur from negligence or from rashly permitting irrigation to be conducted from heads roughly constructed by the fellahîn in the Bahr Yûsuf banks.
Probably some small village channel, allowed to take off directly from the Bahr Yûsuf without a proper head, and used to irrigate some low lands along the slopes of the main ravine, caused a minor ravine to commence and grow, until, cutting back as far as its head, it eventually gave rise to the breach of 1820, which resulted in a widening out of the branch ravine until it attained its present dimensions.
It is, I think, evident that, when Lake Mœris ceased to be, Hawârat-el-Maqta was the key to the position and the point where the problem of the Fayûm irrigation had to be solved. It was necessary for the irrigation of the whole province, that the water-level should be held up at this point, so as to flow along the ridge between Hawârat-el-Maqta and Medineh, from which the whole province, with the exception of the land on the right of the north drainage line, was commanded. For the irrigation from the Bahr Sêlah or from the ancient canals, of which the Bahr Sêlah is the modern representative, it was necessary also that the water should not be allowed to run to low levels down the ravine at the back of Hawârat-el-Maqta. The principal operation then to be performed was to bar this ravine to the passage of the water, and to make the water flow forward along the ridge to Medineh at a high enough level at least to pass over the rocky bed, which is now found in the modern Bahr Yûsuf about a kilometre beyond Hawârah. This end being attained, the water would flow along the ridge, from the sides and end of which it would be distributed into the different branch canals covering the face of the province. Works to control the quantity of water given to each branch, and weirs to head-up the water at intervals along the canals of too rapid a slope would have been added as the want of them made itself felt.
The lake level would become lower year by year, and more land would be reclaimed and brought under cultivation.
At some period of this process, probably after a breach at Hawârat-el-Maqta, or on the failure of the regulator supposed to have formerly existed at Hawârah, the Lahûn bank and its old regulator would have been formed to exclude the excess of water and to control the discharge admitted into the Fayûm. (For sections of these banks, see Plate XXVII.)
I have suggested before that the part of the Lahûn bank which runs east and west was made in the time of Lake Mœris, and that the part from Lahûn to the south side of the gap, which crosses the Bahr Yûsuf at the old Lahûn Bridge, was subsequently made to shut out the Nile floods, when for some reason the means of regulation within the Fayûm at Hawârah ceased to be efficient.
The old Lahûn Bridge has three openings of 2·67 width, the floor level of two of them being at R.L. 21·97 and of the third at R.L. 20·72, so that this bridge could only have been constructed _after_ the discharge required by the Fayûm had fallen to the amount of its present requirements, or to even less, as the waterway is somewhat under what is desirable for the passage of 7 million cubic metres a day, the maximum discharge utilised in the Fayûm at the present day during floods.
It is evident, from the remains of canals along the north and south sides of the Fayûm, that at some time or other these slopes of the province were irrigated to higher levels than the limit of the present cultivation. On the right the old Bahr Wardan is traceable from its old mouth on the Bahr Yûsuf (Kom-el-Iswid) above the present Sêlah Head as far as the north-west corner of the Fayûm depression. It would appear that the water surface level of the Bahr Yûsuf at Hawârah must be lower now than when this canal was under conditions favourable for irrigation. Perhaps it worked when the regulator was, as supposed, at Hawârah, and before the Lahûn bank and old bridge shut out the high-level waters of the Nile flood.
On the south side of the Fayûm there are similarly the remains of an old canal within the limits of what is now desert. This was probably fed by an aqueduct formed along the top of the Minia wall, which held up the waters in Hod-el-Tuyûr. This wall and aqueduct were breached, and though the wall was restored, the aqueduct was not, and the supply was cut off from the high-level canal. The land depending on it consequently returned to desert. Large blocks of old masonry lying prone on the ground at some distance from the present wall show with what force the escaping waters must have rushed through the breaches to have been able to transport such massive blocks to so great a distance from their original position.