Satellite image of the Faiyum Oasis, with Lake Qarun in its interior
Location
Faiyum Governorate, Egypt
Primary inflows
Nile River (via the Bahr Yussef)
Basin countries
Egypt
Surface area
202 km2 (78 mi2) – ancient area estimated between 1,270 km2 (490 mi2) and 1,700 km2 (660 mi2)
Surface elevation
43 m (141 ft) below sea-level
Frozen
No
Settlements
Cairo, Faiyum
Designations
Ramsar Wetland
Official name
Lake Qarun Protected Area
Designated
4 June 2012
Reference no.
2040[1]
Lake Moeris (Ancient Greek: Μοῖρις, genitive Μοίριδος) was an ancient endorheic freshwater lake located in the Faiyum Oasis, 80 km (50 mi) southwest of Cairo, Egypt, which persists today at a fraction of its former size as the hypersaline 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.[2] The prehistoric Lake Moeris spanned much of the area of the modern Faiyum Oasis, with a total area estimated at between 1,270 km2 (490 sq mi) and 1,700 km2 (660 sq mi).
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.[3] 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, medieval and early modern periods, resulting in the Lake Qarun of the present day.[4] The modern lake's surface is 43 m (141 ft) below sea-level, and covers about 202 km2 (78 sq mi).
A number of Eurasian water bird species migrating from more northerly latitudes use Lake Qarun as a wintering ground,[5] 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 introduced to its waters to bolster the local fishing economy; major fisheries in the area include tilapia, mullet and sole.[6] Lake Qarun was designated a Ramsar site in 2012.[1]
Lake Moeris lends its name to the extinct proboscidean mammal Moeritherium, a distant relative of modern elephants first described from the nearby Qasr el Sagha Formation.
^ ab"Lake Qarun Protected Area". Ramsar Sites Information Service. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
^Hayes, William C. (1964). "Most Ancient Egypt: Chapter I. The Formation of the Land". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 23 (2): 73–114. doi:10.1086/371762. ISSN 0022-2968. JSTOR 543676.
^Van de Mieroop, Marc (2011). A history of ancient Egypt. Blackwell history of the ancient world (1. publ ed.). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-6070-4.
^"Lake Moeris". Brown University. Retrieved 2018-08-14.
^El-Shabrawy, Gamal M.; Dumont, Henri J. (2009), Dumont, Henri J. (ed.), "The Fayum Depression and Its Lakes", The Nile, vol. 89, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp. 95–124, doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-9726-3_6, ISBN 978-1-4020-9725-6, retrieved 2024-03-01
^El-Serafy, Sabry S.; El-Haweet, Alaa El-Din A.; El-Ganiny, Azza A.; El-Far, Alaa M. (April 2014). "Qarun Lake Fisheries : Fishing Gears , Species Composition and Catch per Unit Effort". Egyptian Journal of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries. 18 (2): 39–49. doi:10.12816/0011075.
Qasr el Sagha Formation. The name "LakeMoeris" is derived from the Greek translation (Μοῖρῐς λίμνη Limne Moeris) of the Egyptian place-name mr-wr (lit...
Moeris may refer to: Moeris (skipper), a genus of butterflies in the grass skipper family LakeMoeris, an ancient lake of Egypt Amenemhat III (c. 1860–1814...
into the large saltwater LakeMoeris (Birket Qarun). In prehistory it was a freshwater lake, but is today a saltwater lake. It is a source for tilapia...
meant to depict the Faiyum's central LakeMoeris. The papyrus depicts the solar journey of Re with LakeMoeris as the place into which the sun god descends...
colossal statues of himself in Biahmu, and contributed to excavation of LakeMoeris. He built for himself two pyramids at Dahshur and Hawara, becoming the...
meaning the Sea or the Lake, which in turn comes from late Egyptian pꜣ-ym of the same meaning, a reference to the nearby LakeMoeris; the extinct elephant...
doctrine. The entire Faiyum region – the "Land of the Lake" in Egyptian (specifically referring to LakeMoeris) – served as a cult center of Sobek. Most Faiyum...
Egypt contains many lakes currently and other lakes that have vanished. A vast reservoir in southern Egypt and northern Sudan created by the damming of...
Moeritherium ("the beast from LakeMoeris") is an extinct genus of primitive proboscideans. These prehistoric mammals are related to the elephant and...
began work on an extensive irrigation system from Bahr Yussef through to LakeMoeris through the construction of a dike at El-Lahun and the addition of a...
meaning the Sea or the Lake, which in turn comes from late Egyptian pA y-m of the same meaning, a reference to the nearby LakeMoeris. The rate of poverty...
Egyptian pharaoh Amenemhat III. The ruins, which once stood on the shore of LakeMoeris, are located in the Faiyum Oasis 4 miles (6.4 km) north of the city Faiyum...
name) is created when the waterway from the Nile to the natural lake (now LakeMoeris) is widened and deepened to create a canal. c. 2300 BC – 2200 BC:...
the structure's courts and the nomes of ancient Egypt: We have [near LakeMoeris] also the Labyrinth, a work equal to the Pyramids, and adjoining to it...
pharaoh Menes, attacked by his own dogs while out hunting, fled across LakeMoeris on the back of a crocodile and, in thanks, founded the city of Crocodilopolis...
annual flood and then release it to surrounding lands. The lake called Mer-wer or LakeMoeris covered 1,700 km2 (660 sq mi) and is known today as Birket...
soldiers by distributing large plots of land that had been reclaimed from LakeMoeris in the Fayyum to them as estates (kleroi). The area was established as...
Khuzestan province, Iran Birket Qarun, a saltwater lake in Egypt, formerly known as LakeMoeris This disambiguation page lists articles associated with...
Egyptian, meaning: "the temple at the entrance of the lake". The Egyptian labyrinth near LakeMoeris is described by Herodotus and Strabo. The inscription...
sufficiently for the river to overflow westward into a depression to create LakeMoeris. Lake Tanganyika drained northwards into the Nile until the Virunga Volcanoes...
still the subject of very large works, including especially the canal to LakeMoeris around 2300 BC, which was likely also the source of water to the Giza...
main course of the Nile on the Bahr Yussef, a branch that terminates in LakeMoeris and the Faiyum oasis. In ancient Egyptian times, there was a city on...
regionally extinct. For example, Herodotus recorded the species inhabiting LakeMoeris in Egypt. They are thought to have become extinct in the Seychelles in...
the Duat (afterworld), but rather, LakeMoeris, the lake that is central to the Faiyum oasis. It is through the lake, not the underworld, that Sobek-Re...
Babylonian talents of silver, in addition to the money from the fish in LakeMoeris, and 120,000 bushels of grain for the Persian troops and their auxiliaries...
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