Originally founded by the ancient Egyptians as Shedet, its current name in English is also spelled asFayum,Faiyum oral-Faiyūm. Faiyum was also previously officially namedMadīnat al-Faiyūm (Arabic forThe City of Faiyum). The name Faiyum (and its spelling variations) may also refer to theFaiyum Oasis, although it is commonly used byEgyptians today to refer to the city.[4][5]
The modern name of the city comes fromCoptic ̀Ⲫⲓⲟⲙ /Ⲡⲉⲓⲟⲙepʰiom/peiom (whence also the personal nameⲠⲁⲓⲟⲙpayom), meaningthe Sea orthe Lake, which in turn comes from lateEgyptianpꜣ-ym of the same meaning, a reference to the nearbyLake Moeris; the extinct elephant ancestorPhiomia was named after it.
Archaeological evidence has found occupations around the Faiyum dating back to at least theEpipalaeolithic. MiddleHolocene occupations of the area are most widely studied on the north shore ofLake Moeris, whereGertrude Caton Thompson andElinor Wight Gardner did a number of excavations of Epipalaeolithic andNeolithic 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 toRoger S. Bagnall, habitation began in the fifth millennium BC and a settlement was established by theOld Kingdom (c. 2685–2180 BC) called Shedet (Medinet el-Fayyum).[9] It was the most significant centre of the cult of the crocodile godSobek (borrowed from theDemotic pronunciation asKoinē Greek:ΣοῦχοςSoûkhos, and then intoLatin asSuchus). In consequence, the Greeks called it "Crocodile City" (Koinē Greek:ΚροκοδειλόπολιςKrokodeilópolis), which was borrowed into Latin asCrocodīlopolis. 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 thePtolemaic Kingdom, the city was calledPtolemais Euergétis (Koinē Greek:Πτολεμαῒς Εὐεργέτις)[12] untilPtolemy II Philadelphus (309–246 BC) renamed the cityArsinoë and the wholenome after the name of his sister-wifeArsinoe II (316–270 or 268), who was deified after her death as part of thePtolemaic cult of Alexander the Great, the official religion of the kingdom.[13] Ptolemy II Philadelphus also established a town at the edge of Faiyum namedPhiladelphia. It was laid out in a regulargrid plan to resemble a typical Greek city, with private dwellings, palaces, baths and a theatre.[14]
Under theRoman Empire, Arsinoë became part of theprovince ofArcadia Aegypti. To distinguish it from other cities of the same name, it was called "Arsinoë in Arcadia".
The 10th-century Bible exegete,Saadia Gaon, thoughtel-Fayyum to have actually been the biblical city ofPithom, 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 byAbū ‘Amr ‘Uthman Ibn al-Nābulusī.[19]
Faiyum is the source of some famousdeath masks ormummy portraits painted during theRoman occupation of the area. The Egyptians continued their practice of burying their dead, despite the Roman preference forcremation. While under the control of the Roman Empire, Egyptian death masks were painted on wood in a pigmentedwax technique calledencaustic—theFaiyum 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 (source needed), reflecting the complex synthesis of the predominant Egyptian culture and that of the elite Greek minority in the city.[23][24][25]
The construction of the settlement ofPhiladelphia under Ptolemy II Philadelphus was recorded in detail by a 3rd-century BC Greek public official namedZeno (or Zenon,Greek:Ζήνων). Zeno, a native ofKaunos in lowerAsia Minor, came to Faiyum to work as private secretary toApollonius, the finance minister to Ptolemy II Philadelphus (and later toPtolemy 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 2,000papyrus documents was uncovered by Egyptian agricultural labourers who were digging forsebakh nearKôm el-Kharaba el-Kebir. Upon examination byEgyptology scholars, these documents were found to be records written by Zeno inGreek andDemotic. These papyri, now referred to as theZenon Archive or theZenon 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]
Faiyum has several large bazaars,mosques,[31] baths and a much-frequented weekly market.[32] The canal calledBahr 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 theQaitbay 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 theancient Greeks as Crocodilopolis, where in ancient times the sacredcrocodile kept inLake 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 clubMisr Lel Makkasa SC, that play in theEgyptian Premier League.
Wadi Elrayan or Wadi Rayan, the largest waterfalls in Egypt, around 50 km (31 mi) from the city
Wadi Al-Hitan orValley 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.
Tefta Tashko-Koço (1910-1947), well-knownAlbanian 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.
^Borrowed fromCopticⲪⲓⲟⲙ (Phiom) orⲪⲓⲱⲙ (Phiōm), fromEgyptianpꜣ ym, meaning "the Sea" or "the Lake". Originally calledShedet (šd t) in Egyptian, the Greeks renamed itΚροκοδειλόπολις (Krokodeilópolis) inKoine Greek, and laterἈρσινόη (Arsinóë) inByzantine Greek.[2]
^Caton-Thompson, G.; Gardner, E. (1934).The Desert Fayum. London: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
^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.
^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)
^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.
^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
^Riggs, C. The Beautiful Burial in Roman Egypt: Art, Identity, and Funerary Religion Oxford University Press (2005).
^Victor J. Katz (1998).A History of Mathematics: An Introduction, p. 184. Addison Wesley,ISBN0-321-01618-1: "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 thatPtolemy andDiophantus,Pappus andHypatia 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."
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