The Lake of Qarun in Egypt

• 16 / 5 / 2023

Lake Qarun or Lake Qarun is a lake in the city of Fayoum in Upper Egypt, located in the northwest of the city of Beni Suef, west of the Nile River and about 50 kilometers away from it. Qarun Lake is located in Fayoum governorate and is one of the largest natural lakes in Egypt The Meaning of Qarun Name In Hiroghlyphs is "big sea".

The area of Lake Qarun in the old days and its remains today.
Lake Qarun is located north of the city of Fayoum, about 27 km away, and it is one of the deepest lakes, where there are places with depths up to 14 M and also with fish belonging to salt water and fresh water.

The lake was supplied with Nile water during the flood days of the Pharaohs due to its low sea level (-45 meters). During the reign of Pharaoh of Egypt Amenemhat III (XII Egyptian dynasty), he ordered the construction of a canal and two dams to store Nile water in it during the flood. According to Herodotus ' manuscripts on the history of ancient Egypt, the lake stored water for 6 months and supplied the lands with water for six months.

The area

The area of the lake is currently 330 square kilometers, 40 kilometers long, and about 7 kilometers wide. Its area has decreased due to drought over the centuries.

Decline

One of the deepest sides of the Fayoum depression, where it drops by 45 meters below sea level.

Depth

It is a shallow lake with an average depth of 7.5 meters and the deepest areas are about 14 meters. It is currently about 50 kilometers long and about 12 kilometers wide. In the past, it was much wider as it covered the area of the present-day city of Fayoum (see map).

Wastewater in Lake Qarun

It restores the balance of the lake and compensates for the water it loses through evaporation, but this wastewater has become a danger to the agricultural and fishery benefits of this lake, especially the wastewater of fields filled with the remains of chemical fertilizer, which negatively affects the fish in the lake and aquatic life. This is why there is a recent project (2014) to purify wastewater and use it in agriculture instead of discharging it into the lake.

The salinity of Lake Qarun, despite its river origin, is due to its exposure to severe evaporation, which leads to the concentration of salts in it, as well as the high percentage of salts in wastewater. The Fayoum depression is also similar to an oasis, because this area is isolated from the rest of the Nile Valley in Egypt, as well as because the lowlands are not as flat as the Valley and Delta lands, and because the low is the only part of the Nile Valley whose level drops below sea level (apart from the Qattara Depression, which is located west of that area).

Climatic changes and their impact on the topography of Fayoum:

As a result of the unevenness of the lowland, it consists of a series of terraces and terraces.

The result: its lands need irrigation canals that flow between the fields from many points. The water is then pumped to higher levels to reach agricultural land.

In Greek Moeris

Herodotus believed that Moeris is the name of one of the Pharaohs who laid a canal to the lake to store floodwater in it, but the ancient Egyptian designation meant the Big Sea. The pharaoh who created the canal was Amenemhat III of the Twelfth Dynasty.
Also, the name of the city of Fayoum was original "BA-Yum", meaning " the sea "or" this sea" - and the name was later changed to" bayum", then (Fayoum).

More Information About Qarun Lake

History did not mention that Qarun was eclipsed by God's land there, but some believed that it happened because of the similarity of the name of the lake with the name of Qarun, this lake was named after (Barun) in the era of the Pharaohs, and because of the similarity in the name it was named in the modern era with Qarun because some believe that this is the land