MOERIS, LAKE OF, the history of the lake which once occupied a considerable area of the Fayurn depression, and which to-day is represented by the shallow Birkat Qaroun, has been much elucidated by the geological and archaeological work which has been recently carried out in the desert margin of the depression. From the results obtained it would appear that in later palaeo lithic times the lake level reached a point about 13o feet above sea-level, or about 28o feet above the present lake. During neolithic times the level fell slowly for about 14o feet, though there were occasional interruptions when it remained at one level long enough to allow formation of beaches which can still be traced. Throughout this period primitive settlements occupied its shoreline, and down to early dynastic times the level does not seem to have varied greatly. Later however through the dynastic period the level of the lake fell slowly as a result probably of climatic conditions of greater aridity, though the fall was re tarded from time to time as the volume of surplus water brought in from the Nile in order to irrigate the cultivated lands was greater or less.
The cultivated lands above the level of the lake which were irrigated from the Nile were some of the most fertile in Egypt so long as the supply canals from the river were maintained in good order, though this doubtless varied with the political con ditions of Egypt. The Egyptian name of the lake was Shei, "the lake," later Piom, "the sea" (whence Fayurn) ; Teshei, "the land of the lake," was the early name of the region. At its capital Crocodilopolis and elsewhere the crocodile god Sobk (Suchus) was worshipped. Senwosre II. of the XIIth Dynasty built his pyramid
at Illahun. Amenemhet III. built his near Hawara, and the vast labyrinth attached to it was probably his funerary temple. This king was afterwards worshipped in more than one locality about the lake under the name Marres (his praenomen Nemare) or Peremarres, i.e., Pharaoh Marres. In the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus veterans from the Syrian War were settled in the "Lake" (ALAvn), and the latter quickly became a populous and very fertile province. Strabo's account of the Lake of Moeris must be copied from earlier writers, for in his day the outflow had been stopped probably for two centuries, and the old bed of the lake was dotted with flourishing villages to a great depth below the level of the Nile. Large numbers of papyri of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods have been found in and about the Fayilm, which continued to flourish through the first two centuries of the Roman rule. The level of the lake varies from year to year with the amount of irrigation water which reaches it from the Nile. Its average level is now about 147 ft. below sea-level.
See W. M. F. Petrie, Hawara Biahmu and Arsinoe (1889) ; R. H. Brown, The Fayiim and Lake Moeris (1892) ; B. P. Grenfell, A. S. Hunt and D. G. Hogarth, Fayiim Towns and their Papyri (i9oo) ; H. J. C. Beadnell, The Topography and Geology of the Fayfim Province of Egypt (Cairo, i9o5) ; G. Caton Thompson and E. W. Gardner, Geog. Journ. (1929). (F. LL. G.)