The History of the Ancient Civilizations. Duncker Max

western part is filled by a large lake. On the ruins near this lake, the name of King Amenemha III. is frequently read. If we remember that the careful observations of the rise of the Nile from the reign of this king tend to show that he was busily engaged with the irrigation of the land, that the Egyptians call this lake the lake of inundation (meri), and that the king Mœris of the Greeks owes his name to this title (suten en meri), we may regard Amenemha III. as the author of the wonderful hydraulic structures at Fayum. The great reservoir, which he constructed, is no longer in existence, but the remains of it can be traced in dams and in the modern lake of Fayum, the Birket-el-Kerun. The urn-shaped valley of Fayum offered a situation for a basin near the Nile, which might receive and preserve part of the inundation, and the depression in the Libyan range secured a natural path for the canal, required to feed the basin from the Nile, and the Nile from the basin. For the site of the basin the nearest part of the valley was selected; it was enough that the bed of the reservoir was not lower than the lowest level of the Nile. No deep excavations were needed; all that was required was to enclose a large part of the valley with strong dams; and the earth necessary for erecting these could be taken out of the enclosed space. These dams must have been massive enough to retain a large body of water, and prevent it from breaking out into the western, and far lower part of the valley, and at the same time of sufficient height to prevent any overflow even in the times of the highest inundations. At the eastern entrance into Fayum we find running from the valley of the Nile the remains of long, rectilinear, and very massive banks, in which modern research has recognised the original enclosure of the lake of Moeris. The breadth of the dams appears to have been carried to 150 feet; whereas the height can hardly have exceeded thirty feet.[167] When Herodotus tells us that the depth of the basin in the deepest part was fifty fathoms, it is obvious that the statement rests on the computation that the two pyramids in the middle of the lake were of the same height under as above the surface. The same authority allows a circuit of about 450 miles for the lake, but from the remains we cannot allow a greater circuit than 150 miles.[168] The Egyptians were sufficiently skilled in the erection of strong dams, and structures of such an extent could not be in excess of the resources of a country which had erected the great pyramids. Finally, when Herodotus asks what had become of the earth dug out of this great lake, the answer is that there was no complete excavation, but merely the enclosure of a certain space of land, and what was taken out of this was at once applied to the construction of the dams.

The statement of the priests about the height of the inundation in the reign of Moeris, which Herodotus has preserved for us, and from which he has drawn the conclusion that the soil of Lower Egypt must have risen since that reign from seven to eight cubits in height, is much exaggerated. The deposit of mud in consequence of the inundation raises the soil only about four inches in 100 years, that is, about three-and-a-quarter feet in 1,000 years. Supposing the basin of Amenemha to have been completed 1,500 years before Herodotus travelled in Egypt, the difference in the required height of the inundation might reach three or four cubits, but not seven or eight. Yet the raising of the soil, and more especially of the bed of the great basin, which rose far more rapidly than the surface of the land, brought about the decay, and at last the ruin, of this reservoir. The bed of the basin in which the water remained the whole year through, and not for three or four months only, must have been raised by the deposit at a peculiarly rapid rate; at the present time it shows a height of eleven feet as compared with the land outside the remains of the dams.[169] With this rise in the bed, the value of the basin diminished in proportion as the amount of water which the reservoir was capable of receiving was lessened. It was useless to raise the height of the dams, for the influx of the water from the Nile depended on the level of the bed of the connecting canal, and of the basin. These causes along with the disaffection of later times must have brought about the decay of the reservoir, the value of which Diodorus places so high, and which was in existence in the time of Tacitus. At a later period the dams must have been neglected, so that at the time of some extraordinary inundation, a breach was made towards the west, which filled the western and lowest part of Fayum with water. This is the origin of the Birket-el-Kerun, the water of which is still sufficient to convert the largest part of Fayum into one of the most fertile and blooming districts of Egypt. The level of the Birket-el-Kerun is seventy feet lower than the canal which once connected the reservoir with the Nile.[170]

"A little above Lake Moeris," Herodotus tells us, "at the so-called City of the Crocodiles, is the labyrinth. I have seen it, and it outdoes its reputation. If any one were to put together the walls and buildings of the Hellenes, he would find that they were surpassed in labour and cost by this labyrinth alone, although the temples at Ephesus and Samos are certainly well worth speaking of. The pyramids are indeed beyond all description, and each of them is equivalent to many of the greatest works of Hellas, but the labyrinth surpasses even the pyramids. It contains twelve roofed courts, abutting on each other, the entrances to which are opposite, six to the north and six to the south. Externally they are all included in one wall. The chambers are of two kinds, some are under the ground, others visible above it; of each kind there are 1,500. Those above ground I have passed through, and can speak of them from eyesight; those under the ground the Egyptian overseers could not be induced to show me, because, as they said, they contained the sepulchres of the kings who built the labyrinth, and of the sacred crocodiles. Of these, therefore, I can only speak from hearsay: but the chambers above ground, which I saw, are a superhuman work. The entrances through the covered spaces, and the windings through the courts are very complicated, and excite infinite wonder, as you pass from the courts into the chambers, and from the chambers into colonnades, and from these into other covered spaces, and from the chambers into other courts. On all these spaces lies a roof of stone, similar to the walls; the walls are covered with carved pictures, and each court is surrounded on the inside with pillars of white stones, excellently fitted together. In the angle where the labyrinth ends there is a pyramid forty fathoms high, with large figures cut into it. The entrance to this is under the surface."[171]

Diodorus says:—"One of the old kings, named Menas, built on the lake of Moeris, the City of Crocodiles, a tomb for himself, a square pyramid, and the marvellous labyrinth." In another passage he says: "King Mendes, whom some call Marrhus, was not distinguished by any military achievements, but he built for his tomb the so-called labyrinth, which is marvellous not so much for its size as for the inimitable art of the structure. Without a thoroughly competent guide, it would not be easy for any one to find his way out." And in a third passage we are told: "The labyrinth at the entrance into Lake Moeris is a square structure—each side measuring a stadium—built of the most beautiful stone, unsurpassed in the sculptures and the art bestowed upon it." "Passing through the enclosure, you see a house surrounded with pillars, forty on each side, and with a roof of a single stone, adorned with mullions in relief, and various paintings. It also contains the monuments of the twelve provinces of Egypt of their sacred relics and sacrifices, all represented in the most excellent pictures."[172]

Strabo's account is as follows:—"At the sluices (of the canal connecting the basin and the lake) is the labyrinth, a work as great as the pyramids, and moreover the grave of the king who built it. About thirty or forty stades above the mouth of the canal is a table-land, on which lies a hamlet and a palace made up of as many palaces as there are districts in Egypt. For so many in number are the colonnaded courts, adjoining each other in a row, and abutting on a partition against which they are built as against a long wall.[173] The entrances which lead to them are over against the wall. Before these entrances lie dark chambers, long in shape, and numerous, which are connected with each other by winding passages, so that without a guide it is impossible for the stranger to find the entrance or exit belonging to each court. The most marvellous thing is that the roof of each chamber consists of a single stone. Even the dark passages (before the entrances into the courts) are covered with slabs of a single stone, from side to side, without use of wood