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Lake Moeris (, genitive Μοίριδος) was an ancient endorheic lake Fresh water lake located in the Faiyum Oasis, southwest of Cairo, Egypt, which persists today at a fraction of its former size as the hypersaline lake Lake Qarun (Arabic: بركة قارون). In prehistory it was fed intermittently by the Nile via the ancient Hawara Channel, fluctuating in level throughout the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. The prehistoric Lake Moeris spanned much of the area of the modern Faiyum Oasis, with a total area estimated at between and .
During the Middle Kingdom, excavation of the Hawara Channel to create the canal now known as the Bahr Yussef increased the volume of inflow into Lake Moeris, and concurrent drainage and land reclamation projects would see the lake exploited for agricultural purposes. Further drainage and reclamation during the early Ptolemaic Kingdom effectively severed Lake Moeris' direct connection to the Nile and began a gradual trend of recession that continued through the Roman Egypt, Middle Ages and early modern periods, resulting in the Lake Qarun of the present day. The modern lake's surface is below sea-level, and covers about .
A number of water bird species Bird migration from more northerly latitudes use Lake Qarun as a Overwintering, and as such the lake and its surroundings constitute a protected area under Egyptian law. Its high salinity has led to most Nilotic freshwater fish species disappearing from the lake, although a number of saltwater or otherwise salt-tolerant species have been Fish stocking to bolster the local fishing economy; major fisheries in the area include tilapia, mullet and sole. Lake Qarun was designated a Ramsar site in 2012.
Lake Moeris lends its name to the Extinction mammal Moeritherium, a distant relative of modern first described from the nearby Qasr el Sagha Formation.
Sometime prior to the Middle Paleolithic, the silt of the Nile valley accumulated enough for the flooding Nile to overflow into the Faiyum basin through the Hawara Channel, creating the ancient Lake Moeris; this earliest iteration of the lake was fed solely by subsequent, intermittent floods of the Nile, and is thought to have dried up entirely at the end of the Paleolithic before reappearing at the beginning of the Neolithic. Stone flakes found along the margins of the Faiyum basin matching those produced by the Levallois technique suggest that the shores of Lake Moeris were inhabited by humans as far back as the Middle Paleolithic. Other archaeological work in the Faiyum basin, particularly that of Gertrude Caton-Thompson and Elinor Wight Gardner, has recovered evidence of numerous Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic settlements.
The first major manmade alterations to Lake Moeris occurred during the Middle Kingdom under the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty, who ruled from the Faiyum region following the move to the new royal capital of Itjtawy. Senusret II initiated irrigation and land reclamation projects to free up portions of the lake interior for agricultural use, pushing the edge of the lake further outwards from Shedet. His grandson Amenemhat III went on to commission an extensive excavation of the Hawara Channel, creating the canal known today as the Bahr Yussef. This canal increased the volume of water flowing into Lake Moeris from the Nile to more effectively irrigate the Faiyum basin, transforming it into a major agricultural center, and as a result, Amenemhat III was later known in Greek as "King Moeris". (2025). 9789078046059, IAHR International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research. ISBN 9789078046059 In addition to its role as a freshwater reservoir, the lake was also used as part of a freight transport system; basalt blocks mined from a nearby quarry were conveyed to the lake via the Lake Moeris Quarry Road, the oldest known paved road in the world. From the lake, the blocks could be shipped to the Giza Necropolis to be used in the construction of temples and monuments. The ASCE has entered the Quarry Road into its List of Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks.
rect 718 628 871 711 Abgig obelisk
rect 936 453 1207 509 Pedestals of Biahmu
rect 858 548 1148 607 Crocodilopolis
rect 999 699 1260 744 Pyramid of Amenemhat III at Hawara
rect 1108 755 1397 833 Pyramid of Senusret II
rect 1398 476 1620 1122 Nile River
desc none
In his book Histories, the Greek historian Herodotus claims to have visited Lake Moeris, situating it below the Labyrinth of Egypt and opposite the ancient city of Crocodilopolis (i.e., the modern city of Faiyum). Herodotus also states that two "pyramids" (interpreted to be the Pedestals of Biahmu) stood in the middle of the lake, a claim that led the British Egyptology Flinders Petrie to hypothesize that the lake was flooded when Herodotus had visited the area. The immense waterworks undertaken by the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty to transform the lake into a freshwater reservoir left classical geographers such as Herodotus with the impression that the lake itself was an artificial excavation – an interpretation not borne out by modern evidence.
By the end of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, routine maintenance of this irrigation system had been neglected due to internal strife, causing croplands within the Faiyum to either dry up or become totally inundated. The Roman Egypt saw the renovation of Lake Moeris' hydraulic works by Roman troops under Augustus, thereby contributing to Egypt's status as the breadbasket of the early Roman Empire. The revitalization of agriculture within the Faiyum was met with another wave of settlement and the area saw sustained productivity until the Crisis of the Third Century, when another civil war destabilized the region and the irrigation system once again fell into disrepair. Following this period of unrest the emperor Probus, much like Augustus, employed Roman soldiers to re-renovate the canals and dykes and the area became productive once again, though over time the systems were yet again neglected and the Roman settlements became defunct; the area is thought to have been mostly abandoned by the 5th century, with only a small area in the interior of the Faiyum basin remaining cultivated and inhabited through the remainder of the Middle Ages.
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