Al-Ahram Weekly 14 - 20 September 2000 Issue No. 499
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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A channel of discovery

By Reham El-Adawi

This small wooden figurine of a boat and its crew dates back to ancient times

Theoretically, we know more about Karanis than any other Graeco-Roman site in Fayoum. Archaeologists have been able to trace successive generations of inhabitants, and architectural material and papyrological records reveal the lives of the people. But my first visit was somewhat of a disappointment.

I enthusiastically made my way to Kom Ushim -- a mere hour's drive from Giza -- and made the mistake of going to the museum, without first doing my "homework." I walked into the simple double-storey building, recently repainted and re-organised, but although I could appreciate the quality of some of the objects on display, they actually told me little about the site and its history.

A huge limestone statue draped in a Greek toga, jewellery and amulets, and a dumpy gate of a tomb, which was used by the ancients to deceive robbers (or so the accompanying card informed me), seemed unrelated to one another. It was clear from the funerary objects on display that Pharaonic burial customs had remained unchanged through the ages: canopic jars containing the mummified organs of the deceased, painted sarcophagi and a statue of the jackal-headed god Anubis associated with mummification attested to this. But of the homes and lives of the inhabitants of Karanis there was no clue.

I moved out of the museum and, with a helpful guard, traced my way through the nearby ruins. Little remains because the site was largely destroyed by the activities of sebakhin, farmers who dig ancient town sites for the mineral-rich earth found in the disintegrated walls of ancient buildings and refuse dumps. We walked along what appeared to be ancient streets towards a temple, and we mounted odd stairways to find ourselves before the ruins of an ancient bath, but I was still wanting in information. This was once a flourishing town with a reputedly wealthy community that could afford to import glass from Alexandria and perfume flasks from Syria, but it was difficult to gain an overall picture of the site.

Back in Cairo, I turned to the archaeological record, Guide to the Antiquities of the Fayoum by Mary-Ellen Lane and learned that the ruined houses I had walked through were in fact once two- or even three-storey constructions, which dated from the early first century AD. The more modest houses in the settlement usually had three rooms, with cupboards, doorways, lintels and windows, a courtyard and a doorway onto the main street. Streets were narrow and twisting in parts of the city. The houses of the elite had vaulted ceilings, stairways leading to the upper floors, and basement areas containing storage bins for the family stock of grain and other foodstuffs. Most houses also had animal pens, feeding troughs and mangers for livestock.

Karanis was situated on the trade route with Bahariya oasis and it was situated at the edge of one of the most fertile areas in Egypt, the vast Fayoum depression. Wheat and barley, figs, dates, olives and fruits grew there in abundance. Egypt was the bread-basket of the Roman empire and the depression was one of its most important food-producing areas. It was governed by a bloated bureaucracy even as it was protected by Roman soldiers.

I became aware that the settlement at Karanis, which dated from the late Ptolemaic and Roman periods, was probably little different from houses in the larger towns of rural Fayoum today. Sporadic excavations by various foreign missions in 1895, 1924 and the 1940s revealed that the oldest part of the ancient site lay to the south, around two temples dedicated to Pnepheros and Petesouchos, versions of the crocodile-god honoured in Fayoum and that, as it grew, the town spread north as well as east and west, with public buildings on the southern slope.

A modern dovecote tower in Fayoum resembles ruins of the one that dates back to the 1st century

Most of the inhabitants surrounding Karanis were farmers, but there was also evidence of craft industries including potters, dyers, tailors, millers, an oil merchant and even a hairdresser. With this knowledge, I returned to the Kom Ushim and took special interest in the delightful selection of children's toys in the museum (which included a primitively-carved wooden animal that could be either a dog or a horse, wooden dolls, dice and carved trinkets), the attractive collection of terra-cotta statues and portraits of the people showing different styles of hair-dressing. When the inhabitants of the town abandoned their homes (for unknown reasons) they left behind all manner of objects: glass bottles, combs and mirrors, baskets, cooking pots and bronze caldrons, and I looked at this with renewed interest.

When, again accompanied by the guard, I walked through the ruins behind the museum, I could identify the north temple approached by an elevated platform, and contrast it to the mud-brick houses around them. Obviously it served the religious needs of all members of the community. On this second visit, I could identify a granary and a dovecote made, as today, of wheel-made pots, which served as the bird's nests, inserted deeply into the wall.

As for the Roman bath that I saw on my first visit, I had learned from the records of the French Archaeological Institute that there was a cold-water tub, a hot water tub and humid air, and a middle chamber between the two; obviously the Roman version of sauna and bath.

Incidentally, Kom Ushim Museum also houses a lavish collection of objects that date to the Mameluke Period including crystal cups, two decanters and a fruit plate bearing the initials of Khedive Mohamed Tawfiq (1879-1892), a glazed ceramic vase decorated with floral designs and Quranic verses of the Ottoman period of the 17th and 18th centuries, enchanting silver tableware, crystal and linen dating to the time of Mohamed Ali at the beginning of the 19th century.

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