Chapter XXI: Section XIV: Recent

We may divide the Recent period into two epochs, Prehistoric and Historic, always remembering that the line of demarcation is not much more distinct than that between Recent and Pleistocene.

_O._—=Prehistoric.=

The abundance of worked flints on the desert just within and around the site occupied by the Fayûm lake in late Pleistocene and prehistoric times, shows that the shores were eventually inhabited by people who made and used these primitive tools. That the edge of the lake was abundantly wooded is shown by the thousands of well preserved tamarisk stumps met with at the present day in situ (Plate XIV) in the clays throughout the former margin of the lake.

The implements occur chiefly along the margin of the highest level of the old lake, and have probably in many cases been buried in the lake clays until the present time, which would account for their beautiful state of preservation. We have not, however, yet actually detected them enclosed within the clays, although commonly found lying on the clean wind-worn surface. From the fine degree of workmanship we may undoubtedly refer these flint implements to the Neolithic or later stone-age, although the exact date is doubtful. That they were made and used while the lake still stood at its highest level seems certain, but as we have shown above, the lake, as a sheet of water up to 23 metres above sea-level or thereabouts, probably existed far anterior to the Egyptian historic period. They might, on the other hand, as far as the evidence from the position of the lake goes, have been used by the inhabitants of the lake-margin down to the great reclamation which took place in Ptolemaic times. As it seems impossible to date them by comparison with flints of known age from any Egyptian period, we may perhaps conclude that they are at least of older date than the earliest Egyptian records.[95]

_P._—=Historic.=

In historical times, under conditions almost identical with those of the Nile of to-day, there would have been an annual inflow during the flood and outflow back to the Nile when the latter subsided; during the inflow a constant supply of Nile mud was brought into the lake and deposited on the surface of the earlier alluvium, continually augmenting the thickness of the latter and raising its surface, until in the central area marshy land began to appear. In the XII Dynasty this natural backwater of the Nile, which acted as a more or less efficient regulator of high and low floods, was brought under human control by Amenemhat I, and a considerable area of land reclaimed from the shallowest part of the lake, or that part of the country now lying near Edwa, Medinet el Fayûm, etc. The new artificially controlled lake was called Moeris, and its wonders are mentioned by Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo and Pliny.

The actual position of Lake Moeris has been the subject of much discussion, the late Linant de Bellefonds[96] having asserted that it was a high-level lake, quite distinct from the Birket el Qurûn, occupying the gap in the hills by which the Bahr Yusef enters the Fayûm, its encircling bank commencing at Edwa and passing through Biahmu, Medinet, etc. Sir Hanbury Brown has,[97] however, completely demolished Linant’s theory, which is shown to be absolutely untenable; and has proved conclusively that the ancient Mœris occupied the greater part of what is now the cultivated land, as well as the area covered by the present lake and a considerable part of the surrounding desert, the reclaimed land being in fact part of the very district Linant supposed the lake to have occupied. Since the publication of Brown’s work complete corroborative evidence has been forthcoming from two distinct sources, one archæological, the other geological. The latter has already been mentioned.

It was clear from the map of Claudius Ptolemy that the route through the Fayûm to the Oasis Parva left Bacchias near the north end of the lake, and passing between Arsinœ and Lake Mœris, reached Dionysias near the other end. The archæological researches of Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt[98] have shown that Bacchias occupied the site of the modern Um el Atl close to one end of the Birket el Qurûn, while Dionysias was probably in the neighbourhood of Qasr el Banat or Qasr el Qurûn. Thus the Ptolemaic Lake Mœris was almost identical with the modern Birket el Qurûn. Neither did the sites excavated yield a trace of anything older than the third century B.C. Theadelphia and Philoteris were founded in the reign of the second Ptolemy, when a great reclamation of the land from the lake took place, and probably Euhemeria, Dionysias, Karanis and Bacchias date from the same reign.

The archæological evidence is thus briefly summed up by Grenfell and Hunt: “Originally the lake filled the whole basin of the Fayûm, the first reclamation being carried out by Amenemhat I, who built the great dam at El Lahûn, where the Bahr Yusef enters the province, and recovered the high ground near the entrance as far as Biahmu, and a point between Abshawai and Agamiin. This remained the Pharaonic province until the time of Herodotus, when the water still came up to the colossi at Biahmu. Subsequently all the land now cultivated below the level of the Pharaonic province was reclaimed, chiefly in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, when Lake Mœris was reduced nearly to the size of its modern representative, the Birket el Qurûn”.

[Sidenote: Present day Fauna of the Birket el Qurûn.]

As mentioned above, the Pleistocene fauna of the Fayûm differs in one or two particulars from the fauna of the present day. The commonest living molluscan forms include the following:—

_Corbicula fluminalis_.

_Neritina nilotica_.

_Cleopatra bulimoides_.

_Hydrobia stagnalis_.

_Valvata nilotica_.

_Melania tuberculata_.

_Planorbis Ehrenbergi_.

_P. marginatus_ var. _subangulata_.

Blanckenhorn[99] has pointed out that in this fauna _Hydrobia stagnalis_, as a typical brackish water form is of special interest. The species appears to have established itself in the Birket el Qurûn in modern times, as it has not been found in the youngest alluvium of the lake, nor is it known in the modern Nile fauna.

[Sidenote: Modern Deposits: Blown Sand and Erosion.]

Except for the gradual accumulation of silt over the bed of the Birket el Qurûn—sand and clay carried in by the wind and the fine sediment borne by the feeder canals—the only modern deposits of any importance are those of blown sand. The extensive arenaceous deposits of younger Tertiary age, forming the greater part of the continent from the latitude of the Fayûm to the Mediterranean shores, yield as a result of the action of denudation a constant and abundant supply of the raw material. The sand carried southwards by the prevailing winds accumulates as dunes in the lowest parts of the depressions, on the slopes of cliffs, and in all the less exposed localities. Wind swept areas remain free or are only gradually encroached on by slowly growing linear dunes originating in the wind-shadow of some protecting hill or ridge. An unique example of such a dune is to be seen at the south end of the well-marked ridge a few kilometres east of Gar el Gehannem (Plate XV).

The main accumulations of blown sand are in the southern part of the Fayûm; large areas of the floors of Wadis Rayan and Moêla are covered with dunes, while in their immediate neighbourhood the material has accumulated to such an extent as to blot out entire cliffs and valleys; immediately to the west of Gharaq a considerable area is covered with small but steep dunes; and finally must be mentioned the great linear belt of sand, known as the Ghart el Khanashat, which starting from a point about midway between the Wadi Natrûn and Mogara comes to an abrupt termination some 24 kilometres before gaining the northern escarpment of the Fayûm depression (see page 23).

As might be expected in an area like the Fayûm, where sedimentary rocks of every type are met with, and where the wind never wants for a sufficient supply of the necessary sand, superficial erosion is everywhere well marked. We do not propose to study here the action of wind-borne sand and it will be sufficient to mention two localities where the effects are best seen; one is in the neighbourhood of Garat el Esh, where the most remarkable scoring and grooving is to be seen on the two beds of limestone capping the upper and lower cliffs of the Middle Eocene; the other is the Zeuglodon Valley, and here the sculpturing of the sandstone of the Birket el Qurûn series is of the finest and most unique description.

THE BIRKET EL QURUN NEAR THE WESTERN END.]

* * * * *

[Footnote 33: BEADNELL, _The Fayûm Depression; a Preliminary Notice of the Geology of a district in Egypt containing a new Palæogene Vertebrate Fauna_. Geol. Mag. Dec. IV, Vol. VIII, No. 450, Dec. 1901, pp. 540-546.]

[Footnote 34: ANDREWS, _Fossil Mammalia from Egypt_, Geol. Mag. 1899, No. 425, pp. 481, 482; and BLANCKENHORN, _Neues zur Geologie und Paleontologie Ægyptens_, III, “Das Miocän,” Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. geol. Gesellschaft. Jahrg. 1901, pp. 98-101.]

[Footnote 35: SCHWEINFURTH, _Reise in das Depressionsgebiet im Umkreise des Fayum_, Zeitschr., Ges. f. Erdkunde, Berlin, No. 122, 1886, p. 100.]

[Footnote 36: Op. cit. pp. 108-110.]

[Footnote 37: _L’Oasis de Moëleh_, Bull. de l’Institut Égypt., Fasc. 3, Ap. 1892.]

[Footnote 38: The following may be mentioned; _Euspatangus_ (_formosus?_ and _Blanckenhorni_), _Schizaster_, _Lobocarcinus_ (? _Paulino Wurtembergicus_), _Nautilus_ sp. etc.]

[Footnote 39: El Haram el Bahrl of Schweinfurth.]

[Footnote 40: Individuals of 60 mm. diameter are not uncommon.]

[Footnote 41: Cape Rayan of Schweinfurth.]

[Footnote 42: BLANCKENHORN, _Neues zur Geologie und Palæntologie Ægyptens_ (II. Das Palæogen) Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. Geolog. Gesellschaft, Jahrg. 1900, p. 446, has determined this as _T. tenuistriata_. He refers to these beds as corresponding to the Tafla of Jebel Mokattam, but I regard them as probably representing a considerably lower horizon.]

[Footnote 43: The nummulites from the Birket el Qurûn series have not yet been critically examined. There appear to be several species present, including _N. Beaumonti_, _N. Sub-Beaumonti_, _N. Fraasi_ and _N. Schweinfurthi_. In the Zeuglodon Valley, 12 kilom. W.S.W. of Gar el Gehannem, occasional individuals of _N. gizehensis_ occur in the basal beds. As there appears to be some doubt whether the four smaller nummulites mentioned above are specifically distinct we shall not attempt to discriminate too closely in the present report.]

[Footnote 44: SCHWEINFURTH, op. cit. p. 139.]

[Footnote 45: ZITTEL, Palæontographica N.F.X. 3 (XXX) _Die Versteinerungen der tertiäre Schichten von der westlichen Insel im Birket el Qurun See_, von Prof. Karl Mayer-Eymar.]

[Footnote 46: It must be mentioned here, however, that more recently Mayer-Eymar speaks (_Nouvelles Recherches sur le Ligurien et le Tongrien d’Égypte_, Bull. Inst. Égypt., April, 1894, p. 216) of the Mokattam beds above Qasr el Sagha, some 100 metres higher in the series, as Parisian, but does not explain these two conflicting determinations. It seems quite certain, however, that these island beds are of Parisian age, and not Bartonian as stated by him.]

[Footnote 47: _Lucina pharaonis_, Bell., (_L. pomum_, May. Eym. not Dujardin) see Oppenheim, _Zur Kenntnis alttertiärer Faunen in Ægypten_, Palaeontographica, Bd. XXX, III, p. 124.]

[Footnote 48: DAMES, _Uber eine Tertiäre Wirbelthier Fauna von der westlichen Insel des Birket el Qurun in Fayum (Ægypten)_, Sitzungsber. Akad. Wissensch., Berlin, 1883.]

[Footnote 49: _Uber Zeuglodonten aus Ægypten und die Beziehungen der Archæoceten zu den übrigen Cetacean_, Palæontologische Abhandlungen von W. Dames und Kayser, I. V. 5, Jena, 1894.]

[Footnote 50: We propose to refer to this species as _Z. Isis_. See Geol. Mag. No. 479, Dec. V, Vol I, No. V, May 1904, p. 214.]

[Footnote 51: See also, Stromer von Reichenbach, _Zeuglodonten-Reste aus dem oberen Mitteleocän des Fayum_, Bayer Akad. Wissensch. Bd. XXXII, 1902, pp. 341-352.]

[Footnote 52: ERNEST VON STROMER. _Zeuglodon-reste aus dem oberen Mitteleocän des Fayum_, Beiträge zur Paläontologie und Geologie Osterreich-Ungarns und des Orients. Band XV. Heft II and III, p. 82.

Also _Einiges über Bau und Stellung der Zeuglodonten_, Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. geolog. Gesellsch. Jahr. 1903.

Compare Fraas _Neue Zeuglodonten aus dem Unteren Mitteleocän vom Mokattam bei Cairo_, Geol. u. Palæont. Abhand. Neue Folge Band VI Heft 3. Jena 1904.]

[Footnote 53: As the fossils occurring in these beds had been collected and described by Schweinfurth, Dames, and Mayer-Eymar, the writer did not spend further time on the island than was necessary for correlating the beds with his classification.]

[Footnote 54: Cossmann has recently described some Middle Eocene shells collected from the same locality, near Dimê, in a publication entitled _Additions à la Faune Nummulitique d’Égypte_, le Caire, 1901.]

[Footnote 55: _T. pharaonica_, Cossmann. A new species; apparently this is the form quoted by Blanckenhorn and Mayer-Eymar as _T. angulata_. According to Cossmann, however, _T. pharaonica_ differs from _T. angulata_ in several particulars, especially in being more thickset.]

[Footnote 56: Blanckenhorn, thinking that the bed capping the island of Geziret el Qorn is identical with that forming the plain around and to the north of Dimê, has, in a section recently published (_Neues zur Geol. u. Palænt. Ægyptens, IV. Das Pliocän_, etc., Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. geol. Gesellsch., Jahrg. 1901, Taf. XIV, fig. 2), inserted a number of faults letting the beds down continually to the south. The beds however are not identical, and no faults occur.]

[Footnote 57: This block was far too large to transport by camel, but it may be feasible to effect its removal to Cairo by cart when opportunity offers.]

[Footnote 58: SCHWEINFURTH, op. cit. p. 139.]

[Footnote 59: A ruin discovered by Schweinfurth in 1886 and hence often spoken of as “Schweinfurth’s Temple.” Nothing certain is known as to its age or former use, but we may infer from its situation just beyond the limits of the high-level lacustrine clays, that it was built and inhabited only while Lake Mœris stood at its highest level.]

[Footnote 60: See OPPENHEIM, op. cit. p. 105.]

[Footnote 61: Details of a section of the lower beds of this group near the end of the lake have already been given on p. 44.]

[Footnote 62: As might be expected, vertebrate remains occur chiefly in the sandy and clayey beds. Skeletons of marine animals such as _Zeuglodon_ and _Eosiren_ may, however, be frequently observed embedded in the hard intercalated limestones. Limestone cranial-casts of these animals are thus sometimes found, and one of these has already been figured and described (Elliot Smith, _The Brain of the Archæoceti_, Proceedings Royal Society, Vol. 71, pp. 322-331. Some most beautifully formed casts from one of the limestone beds were eventually determined by Andrews to be casts of the air passages of crocodile skulls.]

[Footnote 63: Schweinfurth appears to have been the first to examine these beds.]

[Footnote 64: One would imagine that there must have been a considerable amount of ferruginous matter in the water at the time of deposition of the Fluvio-marine series, the prevailing colours of the deposits being red and yellow.]

[Footnote 65: Mayer-Eymar appears to believe the depression of the Fayûm is the result of the volcanic activity which produced these basalt flows. He says (op. cit. _Nouvelles recherches, etc._, p. 218.) “Or, de cette extension extraordinaire du phénomène volcanique dans l’ouest du grand désert, il est, en premier lieu, permis de conclure que c’est par suite de son action excavante qu’a eu lieu l’effondrement rempli de nos jours, en partie par le lac de Fayum.”

Personally, we cannot see the slightest evidence in support of this. Where the basalt occurs as a hard band it usually causes steep cliffs as at Widan el Faras, owing to its protecting the underlying beds from denudation. To the west, in Jebel el Qatrani, its thickness and hardness determine the character and steepness of the escarpment below.]

[Footnote 66: Pebble bands are occasionally met with in the coarser sandstones of the Fluvio-marine series, and it would seem that from them are derived the pebbles of quartz and flint which so invariably strew the desert-surface to the north to beyond the latitude of Cairo. Those flints on the surface are largely broken up and flaked by changes of temperature, but show comparatively little shaping by blown sand; the white quartz pebbles on the other hand, while seldom or never broken or flaked, are invariably more or less facetted, frequently into typical “dreikanter” or pyramid-pebbles; below the surface both varieties are perfectly water-rounded.]

[Footnote 67: Many of the fossils mentioned in this profile were only discovered after long search, and had to be inserted in the measured section afterwards. Their position therefore is only approximate, as individual beds could not always be correlated at the different points where fossils were collected.]

[Footnote 68: It is not intended to convey the impression that remains of all these vertebrates were found at the point where the actual line of section runs. As a matter of fact at that particular point only _Palæomastodon_ remains were observed, while most of the others were obtained some distance further west. Remains of _Mœritherium_, probably identical with _M. Lyonsi_, of the Qasr el Sagha series, in the shape of a beautifully-preserved and almost complete skull, associated with _Palæomastodon_ and _Arsinoitherium_ in these same beds, I only discovered in January 1903, at a point nearly due north of the western end of the Birket el Qurûn. A preliminary description of this skull has been published by Andrews, _Further Notes on the Mammals of the Eocene of Egypt_; Geol. Mag. Dec. V. Vol. I. No III. March 1904, pp. 109-115.]

[Footnote 69: ANDREWS and BEADNELL, _A preliminary notice of a Land Tortoise from the Upper Eocene of the Fayûm, Egypt_, P.W.M. report, Cairo, 1903.]

[Footnote 70: In addition to those described from the Survey and British Museum collections, some additional species are described by von Reinach from von Stromer’s collection: _Schildkrötenreste aus dem ägyptischen Tertiär_; Sonderabdruck aus den Abhandlungen der Sendeenbergischen naturforschenden Gesellschaft, Band XXIX, Heft I. Frankfurt 1903.]

[Footnote 71: Op. cit., p. 455-456. Vide Blanckenhorn, _Zur Kentniss der Süsswasserablag. u. Mollusken Syriens_. Palaeontographica XLIV, 1897, S. 97, t. 8, f. 2.]

[Footnote 72: More recently Blanckenhorn in a paper entitled _Nachträge zur Kentniss des Palaeogens in Ægypten_, (Centralbl. f. Mineralogie ch. 1901, No. 9, p. 272) has named this species _Lanistes bartonianus_ (spelled _bartoninus_ in same paper).]

[Footnote 73: It has 4-5 flat spiral rows, the uppermost of which on the last whorls is often more strongly developed but not keel-shaped as in _M. muricata_. There are longitudinal ribs to the number of 8-12 over the whorls; the largest example was 9 millimetres long and had 8 whorls.]

[Footnote 74: See Note 2, p. 43.]

[Footnote 75: The majority belong to the genus _Nicolia_, but more rarely specimens, apparently referable to a species of conifer, are met with.]

[Footnote 76: The largest trunk noticed had a length of 28 metres.]

[Footnote 77: ZITTEL, _Beitr. z. Geol. u. Palaeont. d. Libysch. Wüste_, I Th. (Palaeontographica, Vol. XXX) p. XCIII.]

[Footnote 78: MAYER-EYMAR, _Quelques mots sur les nouvelles recherches relatives au Ligurien et au Tongrien d’Egypte_. Bull. de l’Inst. Egypt. (3) N. 4, 1894. Mayer-Eymar’s division of the lower beds into _Ligurien inférieur_ and _Ligurien supérieur_ is hardly convincing, especially as no fossils were found by that observer. The correlation of strata in widely separate areas by their lithological similarity is at least open to question, especially with beds of this type, which can indeed be exactly matched again and again at many levels in the same vertical succession. His diagnosis of the beds immediately below the basalt as _Tongrien inférieur_, rests, however, on firmer grounds, as this basalt sheet can be traced across the desert to beyond the latitude of Cairo, and is probably everywhere of approximately the same age.]

[Footnote 79: SCHWEINFURTH, op. cit., _Reise in das Depression Gebiet_, etc.) p. 41.]

[Footnote 80: BEADNELL, _The Cretaceous Region of Abu Roash, near the Pyramids of Giza_. Geol. Survey, Egypt, Report 1900, Pt. II. 1902, p. 44.]

[Footnote 81: _Zur Geologie Aegypten_, Pt. II, p. 458; _Die Geschichte des Nil-Stroms in der Tertiär und Quartärperiode_, etc., Z. d. Ges. f. Erdk. Z. Berlin, 1902, Tafel 10.]

[Footnote 82: BEADNELL, _Découvertes Géologiques Récentes dans la Vallée du Nil et le Désert Libyen_, Compte rendu. VIIIe Congr. Géol. Internat. 1900, Paris, 1901, p. [Blank]; also BALL and BEADNELL, _Baharia Oasis: Its Topography and Geology_; Survey Depart. P.W.M. report. Cairo. 1903, pp. 61-62.]

[Footnote 83: _Correlations between Tertiary Mammal Horizons of Europe and America_, Annals N.Y. Acad. Sci., Vol. XIII, No. 1, July 21, 1900, pp. 1-72.]

[Footnote 84: Compare _Afrika als Entstehungszentrum für Säugetiere_, Stromer, Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. Geolog. Gesellsch. Jahr 1903. Also _Betrachtungen über die Geologische geschichte Aethiopiens_, do. do., 1901.]

[Footnote 85: The locality has been briefly examined by Dr. Blanckenhorn and more recently by Mr. T. Barron, who was accompanied by Dr. Andrews; the writer spent a few days collecting in the neighbourhood in April, 1903.]

[Footnote 86: Approximately 10 metres above sea-level.]

[Footnote 87: It is worth recording here that a single worn specimen of _Chicoreus anguliferus_, Lam., was found on the desert surface in the neighbourhood of the bone-pits and at about the level of the highest gravel terrace. This determination was made by Bullen Newton, who informs me the species occurs in the marine Pleistocene beach deposits of the Red Sea.]

[Footnote 88: BEADNELL, _Découvertes Géologiques Récentes dans la Vallée du Nil et le Désert Libyen_, VIIIe Congrès Géol. Intern. 1900. Paris 1901, pp. 25-27.]

[Footnote 89: Doubt has recently been thrown by American writers on the possibility of large or thick deposits of gypsum being formed by precipitation. See R. S. SHERWIN. _Notes on the theories of origin of gypsum deposits_, Kansas Acad. Sci. Trans. Vol. 18. 1903, pp. 85-88.]

[Footnote 90: Egyptian Irrigation (1899), p. 32.]

[Footnote 91: The southern limits of the site (broken line) are taken from the maps of Brown and Willcocks.]

[Footnote 92: The mammalian remains collected from these lacustrine clays have not yet been systematically examined. Dr. Andrews has however determined some of the genera present: see, “_Notes on an Expedition to the Fayum, Egypt_”, Geol. Mag. No. 470 Aug. 1903, pp. 337-343.]

[Footnote 93: MARTENS _Subfossile Süsswasser-Conchylien aus dem Fajum_, Sitz. Ber. Gesell. naturforsch. Freunde, Berlin July, 1879, S. 100 u. Oct. 1886, S. 126.]

[Footnote 94: _Geologie Ægyptens_, pp. 444-446.]

[Footnote 95: For figures and details of these flints see a paper by the writer, _Neolithic Flint Implements from the Northern Desert of the Fayûm, Egypt_, Geol. Mag., Dec. IV., Vol. X., pp. 53-59, Febr. 1903.]

[Footnote 96: _Mémoires sur les principaux travaux d’utilité publique exécutés en Egypte depuis la plus haute antiquité jusqu’à nos jours_. 1872-1873, Chap. II.]

[Footnote 97: Op. cit. pp. 28-40.]

[Footnote 98: “_The disposition of the Lake Mœris_,” in the Archæological Report of the Egypt Explor. Fund 1898-1899, Pt. I. D., pp. 13-15.]

[Footnote 99: BLANCKENHORN, op. cit. p. 463.]