Watering the Desert: Environment, Irrigation, and Society in the Premodern Fayyūm, Egypt By Brendan James Haug A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Professor Todd M. Hickey, Chair Professor Susanna Elm Professor Maria Mavroudi Professor Carlos Noreña Spring 2012 Watering the Desert: Environment, Irrigation, and Society in the Premodern Fayyūm, Egypt © 2012 by Brendan James Haug Abstract Watering the Desert: Environment, Irrigation, and Society in the Premodern Fayyūm, Egypt by Brendan James Haug Doctor of Philosophy in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology University of California, Berkeley Professor Todd M. Hickey, Chair Through a study of its natural environment and irrigation system, this dissertation investigates the evolution of the landscape of Egypt’s Fayyūm depression across sixteen centuries, from the third century BCE to the thirteenth century CE. From the evidence of Greek papyri, Arabic fiscal documentation, early modern travel literature, archaeology, and contemporary scientific work, I chart the changes in human relationships with earth and water over time, changes which constantly altered the inhabited and cultivated regions of the Fayyūm. My main argument throughout is that it was local agency and not state governments that continuously remade the landscape. The history of the Fayyūm after the fourth century CE has long been viewed by ancient historians as one of decline from its ancient heights due to the failure of the late Roman and Muslim successor states to properly manage its irrigation system. I locate the genesis of this narrative within nineteenth century perceptions of the docility of nature and the belief that ancient governments had achieved centralized control over the Nile and the Egyptian environment. This anachronistic retrojection of the characteristics of the modern irrigation system has had a considerable afterlife in historical scholarship on Egyptian irrigation. Eschewing a narrow focus on the state, this dissertation argues that that nature is a potent agent in its own right. Ancient farmers could not control nature so they adapted to it, creating four distinct irrigated sub-regions in the Graeco-Roman Fayyūm, each tailored to the particulars of the local environment. Our papyri stem from only one of these sub-regions, the water-scarce margins, which lay at the tail end of the irrigation system. Here, inadequate irrigation and fertilization progressively led to soil salinization and degradation, which helped to spur the eventual abandonment of these areas. By the medieval period, only the central floodplain remained inhabited. Only here was sustainable agriculture under the regime of premodern technology possible. Although the Roman state coordinated local labor on the canals, nothing could bind Fayyūm villagers to the degrading margins in perpetuity. Fourth century papyri hint that some cultivators had moved to other nomes and were prospering. Still later documents of the sixth to eighth centuries CE reveal greatly increased settlement density in the central Fayyūm. Thus, it was local cultivators who made and remade the landscape of the Fayyūm over the centuries according to their own needs. Government could both guide and benefit from this local labor but it could never fully control it. 1 For my family. i TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures iii Acknowledgments iv-v Introduction 1-6 Chapter 1—Dreams of Mastery: Colonial Irrigation and Egypt’s Imagined Past 7-32 Chapter 2—Water and Time: Irrigated Landscapes in the longue durée 33-50 Chapter 3—The Physical Setting: Nature and Environment in the Fayyūm 51-74 Chapter 4—Landscapes of Scarcity: The Irrigation System and Landscape Diversity 75-105 Chapter 5—At the Tail End: Scarcity and Society on the Margins 106-132 Conclusion 133-136 Appendix— Prolegomena to a Topography of the Late Antique Fayyūm : 6th-8th centuries CE 137-187 Bibliography 188-201 ii FIGURES* 1 The Rosetta Branch Barrage ca. 1895 15 2 A typical nineteenth century “column” basin 16 3 The Aswān Low Dam in the early twentieth century 18 4 Overview of the modern Fayyūm 52 5 Plant life after a rainstorm at Soknopaiou Nesos 54 6 Cross-section of Fayyūm topography 55 7 Waterlogging and soil salinity at ‘Izbat Tūnsī 56 8 Physiography of the Fayyūm 57 9 Major soil types in the Fayyūm 58 10 Pre-Ptolemaic Lake Moeris 61 11 Ancient lakebed near Soknopaiou Nesos 64 12 Comparison of ancient lake levels with the modern Birkat Qārūn 70 13 The Baḥr ‘Abdallah Waḥbī at Hawara 85 14 Remains of the ancient border canal at Bakchias 86 15 Modern water pump near Tebtunis 91 16 Extent of water delivery technology in the contemporary Fayyūm 92 17 Manually transporting Nile silt as fertilizer 95 18 Masonry-faced segment of the Iṭsā-Shidmū dyke 99 19 Rubble-core segment of the Iṭsā-Shidmū dyke 102 20 A water collection and distribution cistern in the Baḥriyya Oasis 114 21 Sluicegate on a branch canal in ‘Izbat Tūnsī 123 22 Embanked fields near Hawara 126 23 The Fayyūm in the sixth-eighth centuries CE 188 * All images are original drawings, original photographs, or are historical photographs in the public domain. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Four people in particular have made both my time at Berkeley and this project possible. The first is my advisor Todd Hickey, who has mentored me throughout my entire graduate career, in both good times and bad. For eight years the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri has been my home away from home and Todd has been my guide through all things papyrological. From the moment that I realized that I wanted to pursue a project outside the bounds of traditional papyrology he has never ceased encouraging my work and has demonstrated the utmost confidence in my abilities at every step along the way. Donald Mastronarde has also facilitated every aspect of my graduate career, quietly working behind the scenes to ensure that money was available for me to continue as a research assistant at the Center and to travel to Egypt. Both of them have supported me for eight long years and I am forever grateful. Secondly, Yossef Raporport and Ido Shahar deserve much credit for the research and conclusions that follow. Before I had even thought to ask, they graciously shared their working translation of al-Nābulusī’s Tārīkh al-Fayyūm well as well as their forthcoming study of thirteenth century Fayyūm irrigation and water management. My own Arabic is far too rudimentary to use al-Nābulusī with ease and access to an English translation has been invaluable in opening up new areas of inquiry into Fayyūm hydrology. This dissertation would not exist in its present form without Yossi and Ido’s generosity. I also thank Andy Monson for several stimulating conversations about nature, environment, and irrigation in the Fayyūm. Andy offered much useful insight, shared with me portions of his dissertation and his forthcoming study of agricultural productivity in the ancient Fayyūm, and secured for me an invitation to the Fifth International Fayyūm Conference in 2013. Andy’s work, particularly his new book, is a model of the integration of environmental and comparative data with the evidence of the papyri and represents a great step forward in our understanding of Egyptian agriculture in the Graeco-Roman period. Many others deserve my thanks for their help along the way. My committee, Carlos Noreña, Susanna Elm, and Maria Mavroudi all encouraged me to “keep the faith” and persevere at a time when job prospects in academia are bleak. Maria’s commentary on my work has also proved incredibly valuable. She brought a unique insight to the project and drew my attention to problems I did not know existed. Future versions of this study will greatly benefit from her keen eye. Jim Keenan and Joe Manning have also provided much support. Jim introduced me to Yossi and Ido and supported me in a recent fellowship application. Joe has shared unpublished work and greatly enriched my understanding of water management in the Ptolemaic period, drawing my attention to bibliography that has proven indispensible. They have both offered kind words for my short chapter in their forthcoming volume on law and society in Graeco-Roman Egypt. I feel privileged to be included in this collection of essays by some of the world’s leading papyrologists. Thanks also to Cornelia Römer and Willy Clarysse for their work in organizing and leading a November of 2011 seminar and tour in the Fayyūm. This trip offered me my first opportunity to experience the Fayyūm in depth with the aid of expert guides. Willy and Cornelia organized lectures at virtually every site given by the excavators themselves: Paola Buzi, Mario Capasso, Paola Davoli, Willeke Wendrich, Edda Bresciani, and Rosario Pintaudi deserve many thanks for taking time out of their schedules to give me and the other students the benefit of their years of work and experience in the Fayyūm. iv But quite apart from the already prodigious task of organizing every aspect of the seminar, Cornelia went “above and beyond” by finding us such a lovely place to stay in the village of Tūnis at the home of Dr. Magdi Sidhom. She and Magdi also have my thanks for taking care of me when I came down with a particularly nasty (but thankfully short-lived) bout of food poisoning and dehydration. Thanks also to Florence Lemaire, who first introduced me to the Fayyūm in the summer of 2010. After a month of being unable to coordinate our busy schedules in Cairo, we discovered one morning that we were next-door neighbors in a city of nearly 20 million. Our two day trips in her sturdy Jeep were a delight, particularly our shared inability to navigate.