Fayoum is a depression or basin in the desert like the Qattara Depression. However unlike the Qattara, Fayoum is fertile. Well below sea level, Fayoum receives its water from the River Nile. Waters
Fayoum is a depression or basin in the desert like the Qattara Depression. However unlike the Qattara, Fayoum is fertile. Well below sea level, Fayoum receives its water from the River Nile. Waters rushes into the depression through a narrow neck of land called Bahr Yussef. Silt, mud, and water provides the Fayoum basin with rich agricultural land. In fact, the region of Fayoum has evidence of earliest land cultivation in the world.
Fayoum (see Neil Hewison’s book on Fayoum) is host to centuries of archaeological and natural wonders. Only a three hour drive away from Cairo, one can visit the nature park of the Valley of the Whale (Wadi el-Hitan) to archaeological sites that date back to the Middle Kingdom. In fact, Fayoum is home to “The City of the Past”—Medinet Madi—an ancient town with the only preserved Middle Kingdom temple in Egypt. Amenemhat III and then his son, Amenemhat IV, both