Chapter XIV: Letter XII: The Labyrinth, the 18th July, 1843

We have accomplished our journey round that remarkable province, the Faiûm, very rarely visited by Europeans, which, on account of its fertility, may be named the Garden of Egypt; and precisely because these parts are almost as unknown as the distant oases of Libya, you will, perhaps, be glad to hear some more details about them from me.

I started with Erbkam, E. Weidenbach, and Abeken, on the 3rd of July. We went from the Labyrinth along the Bahr Wardâni, which skirts the eastern border of the desert, and forms the boundary, to which the shore of Lake Mœris at one time extended towards the East. The canal is now dry, and is replaced by the still more recent Bahr Scherkîeh, which, as they say, was made by the Sultan Barquq, and is conducted through the middle of the Labyrinth; it at first crosses the Wardâni several times, but afterwards keeps more inland. In three hours we reached the point where the huge dam of Mœris projects from the middle of the Faiûm into the desert. It runs out in this spot for about one and a half geographical miles as far as El Elâm. In the middle of this tract it is intersected by Bahr-bela-mâ, a deep bed of a stream, which now cuts through the old lake-bottom, and is usually dry, but when there is a great supply of water, it is used as an outlet for the superfluity towards Tamîeh, and into the Birqet-el-Qorn. This enabled us to examine the dam itself from a nearer point of view. The current, which at times is swollen and rapid, has scooped out a passage for itself since the destruction of the lake, not only through the alluvial soil that formed the bottom of the lake, but also through several other layers of earth, and even through the slightly indurated limestone lying undermost; so that the water, at this season, reduced certainly to a minimum, flows about sixty feet lower than the present dry bottom of the lake. I measured accurately the separate layers of earth, and carried away with me a specimen of each. The breadth of the dam cannot be determined with certainty, but may, perhaps, have amounted to 150 feet. The height of the dam has probably become somewhat lower with time. I found it to be 1 m. 90 (6 feet 3 inches English) above the present bottom of the lake, and 5 m. 60 (18 feet 4 inches English) above the opposite plain. If we suppose this last to be on a similar level with the original bottom of the lake (which was, however, probably lower, because the external ground was irrigated, and consequently became elevated), then the dam, apart from its gradual levelling from above downwards, must have been formerly as much as 5 m. 60, consequently 17 feet high, and the ground in the inner part of the lake, during its existence of more than two thousand years, must have risen by deposits of earth about 11 feet. But if we admit that the black earth also, from 11 to 12 feet thick, which is still to be found outside of the dams, was deposited within the historical times, then the above numbers would even require to be doubled. Thus we have some idea how its utility must have been much diminished with time; for the lake (if we assume that its circumference is what Linant asserts), by the filling up of the 11 feet of earth, must have lost 13,000 millions of square feet of the water, which it might have formerly contained. An elevation of the dams could in no possible manner have prevented this, because they had been already placed in exact relation to the point of the influx of the Bahr Jussuf into the Faiûm. This may have been one of the most substantial reasons why Lake Mœris was allowed at a later period to fall into decay; and even Linant’s bold project to restore the lake could not wholly repair this loss, even if he were to make the Bahr Jussuf branch off from the Nile at a much higher point than was thought necessary by the old Pharaohs.

In two hours and a half from this intersection, following the dam to El Elâm, where it ceases, we reached the remarkable remains of the two monuments of Biahmu, which Linant considers to be the Pyramids of Mœris and his consort, which were seen by Herodotus in the lake. They were built out of great massive blocks; the nucleus of each of them is still standing, but not in the centre of the almost square rectangle, which, by their appearance, they seem to have originally occupied. They rose at an angle of 64°, therefore, with a much steeper inclination than Pyramids usually do. Their present height, which, however, seems to have been originally the same as it is now, only amounts to twenty-three feet, to which, nevertheless, must be added, a peculiar and somewhat projecting base of seven feet. A small excavation convinced me that the lowest layer of stone, which only reaches four feet beneath the present ground, was founded neither on sand nor on rock, but upon Nile mud, which more especially render the great antiquity of these buildings very doubtful. At least it is to be inferred from this that they did not stand in the lake, which, if it encircled them, must have had a remarkable curve outwards to the north-west.

We had been riding hitherto on the line of separation between the ancient bottom of the lake and the adjacent district. The former is bare and sterile, since the land, at the present day, lies so high that it cannot be overflowed. On the other hand, the broad tract of land enclosing the ancient lake, forms by far the most beautiful and most fertile part of the Faiûm. We now traversed this district, while we left the capital of the province, Medînet el Faiûm, with the mounds of the ancient CROCODILOPOLIS on our left, and rode by Selajîn and Fidimîn, to Agamîeh, where we spent the night. The next morning, near Bischeh, we reached the limits of this continuous garden-land. Here we entered a new region, forming a striking contrast to the former, by its sterility and desolation, enriching it like a girdle, and separating it from the crescent-shaped Birqet-el-Qorn, situated in the lowest and most distant part. About mid-day we reached the lake. The only boat which was to be had, far and wide, conveyed us in an hour and a half across the expanse of water, encircled all around by the desert, to an island lying in the centre of the lake, called Gezîret-el-Qorn. We, however, found nothing on it worthy of notice, not even a trace of a building, so towards the evening we returned.

The next morning we re-crossed the lake in a more northerly direction, and landed on a small peninsula of the opposite shore, which rises at once 150 feet, to a plateau of the Libyan Desert, commanding the whole Oasis. We then ascended, and about an hour distant from the shore, in the midst of the inhospitable desert, devoid of water and vegetation, we found the extensive ruins of an ancient town, which on earlier maps is named Medînet Nimrud. They were utterly unacquainted with this name here; the place was only known by the designation of DIMÉH. On the following day, the 7th July, the regular plan of these ruins, with the remains of its temple, was noted down by Erbkam, who had spent the night here with Abeken. There are no inscriptions on the temple, and whatever sculptures we found, were placed in this remarkable building at a late period. It was probably intended only as a military station, against invasions from Lybia into the rich country of the Faiûm.

On the 8th July we went in our boat to QASR QERÛN, an old town on the southern end of the lake, with a temple of late date, and in excellent preservation, but with no inscriptions, the plan of which was taken on the following day. From this place we followed the southern frontier of the Oasis, by Neslet, as far as the ruins of Medînet Mâdi, on LAKE GHARAQ, near which the ancient dams of Lake Mœris projected from the north, and on the 11th July we again arrived at our camp on the ruins of the Labyrinth. We found all well, including Frey, whom we had left indisposed, and whose repeated attacks of illness, probably produced by the climate, cause me some anxiety.

To-morrow I am thinking of going to Cairo with Abeken and Bonomi, to hire a boat for our journey south, and to prepare everything that is requisite for our final departure from the neighbourhood of the capital. We shall take four camels with us for the transport of the monuments which we have collected in the Faiûm, and strike into the shortest road, namely, from here by TAMÎEH, which we did not touch at, on our journey round, and thence across the desert heights which separate this part of the Faiûm from the Nile valley; we shall then descend into it by the Pyramids of Daschûr, and thus hope to reach Cairo in two days and a half.