During prehistory, more people lived in the Fayoum than in the Nile Valley. The land here was lush, and there was an abundance of water. Between 7200 and 6000 BC, a time known as the Qarunian period, Southwest Asians, whom we call Epi-Paleolithic Qarunians, migrated to the area and settled it, making hunting and fishing their main occupations. At the time, plants and animals were just beginning to be domesticated. All of this took place around a much larger lake than is there now. 

Later, during Neolithic times (5500 to 4000 BC), two distinct groups of people existed around the lake shores. These were the early Neolithic Fayumian and Late Neolithic Moerian. It was during this period that the first agricultural communities sprang forth. These people dined on gazelle, hartebeests or catfish, cooked in rough faced bowls or cooking pots, and served their friends and family on red polished rectangular earthenware dishes. 

However, around 4000 BC, the climate of the Fayoum began to dry up, and over a period of many years, the people left their drought stricken homes and migrated closer to the Nile. By about 3500 BC, some were living east of the Nile in what is now Maadi-Digla, a modern suburb south of Cairo. From their ancient sites, we know that they had grain silos, made pottery and used sickles. Once the Nile Valley became dominant, the Fayoum was all but abandoned, because life along the river was much easier. The Fayoum became a hunting and fishing paradise, as well as a place to be mined for its salts, limestone and chert. 

The Fayoum Oasis has come in and out of favor with tourists to Egypt over the years. Only a few years ago, it remained a hunter's paradise but hunting also has its more ancient legends in the Fayoum. It was here, Diodorus tells us, that King Menes, the uniter of Upper and Lower Egypt, went on a hunting trip and almost lost his life when his own dogs attacked him near the lake. However, this legend records that his life was saved by a crocodile which carried him across the water to safety. As a reward, he declared the lake a sanctuary for crocodiles and founded the city of Shedet, known to the Greeks as Crocodilopolis but today called Kiman Faris. His city became the cult center of the crocodile god Sobek, Though the Fayoum was identified with Nun, the primeval ocean, the origin of all life in ancient mythology, Sobek remained the chief deity of the region throughout dynastic and Greek times and into the Roman era. All the known temples were dedicated, or at least co-dedicated, to one or another of his aspects. A sacred crocodile kept at the main temple at Crocodilopolis was seen and described by both Herodotus and Strabo. 

Nevertheless, during the early dynastic times, the Fayoum remained mostly undeveloped, much of it probably marsh and swamp, though it was a favored hunting ground for the Egyptian elite. During the Old Kingdom, it was known as Ta-she, or She-resy (the Southern Lake). 

Then in the 12th Dynasty, numerous Egyptian kings brought new life to the area. They took up residence at Lisht, nearby in the Nile Valley. It was probably the founder of this dynasty, Amenemhat I, who, during the first half of the 20th century BC, flooded the Fayoum to create the famous Lake Moeris, which was described 1,500 years later by Herodotus. He also built his pyramid at Lisht. His successor, Senusret I, erected an obelisk of Abgig, and later, the Lahun pyramid was built for Senusret II. Amenemhat III, who had a long, peaceful reign towards the end of the 19th century BC, added a number of monuments to the region, including the colossi of Biahmu (al Sanam), the temples at Madinat Madi and Kiman Faris, and at Hawara he built the famous Labyrinth and his own pyramid, the only one to be built away from the Nile Valley. His successor, Amenemhat IV, also worked at the temple of Madinat Madi. 

However, after these Middle Kingdom kings, interest dropped off once again until the Ptolemies and their Greek rule (after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC). Really, very little is known about the Fayoum during Egypt's New Kingdom. 

We actually have considerable information about the Fayoum during Greek times because of the many hundreds of papyri that were discovered throughout the area during the past century. Mummies were wrapped in old papyrus scrolls, so old cemeteries were and continue to be excellent libraries of information about the Fayoum. 

These documents are diverse, revealing census records, household accounts, fictional stories and details about the army. So extensive are they that we not only know the names of towns, but also their districts and street names. We know that men married at around eighteen to twenty years of age, and women around fifteen. We also know that the Greeks practiced infanticide, especially if the child was female. Under Greek rule, there were 114 villages in the Fayoum, with sixty-six of them taking Greek names. There was considerable rivalry between these villages, sometimes resulting in open hostility. They stole crops, soil and water rights from each other. 

We also know that there was a thriving tourist trade even then, when pilgrims would come to feed the sacred crocodiles with fried fish and honey cakes. 

The first Greek ruler, Ptolemy I began a process of improving the region by draining a part of Lake Moeris, and thus reclaiming about 1,200 square kilometers of excellent land. His work was continued by his son, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who gave parcels of the new and very fertile land to his Greek and Macedonian veterans, which provided the region with a fresh profusion of humanity. With these efforts, the Fayoum blossomed into probably the richest and most productive area of the country. These new settlers made the Fayoum into the "Garden of Egypt" with new innovations such as the water propelled saqya, or water wheel, now a well known feature of the region. 

During the Ptolemaic Period, settlers in the Fayoum were mostly Greeks and Macedonians, but there were also groups of Jews, Persians, Arabs, Syrians, Thracians and Samaritans. Here, an interesting process took place for, unlike the  Greeks in Alexandria who remained mostly a homogeneous community for many years, the Greeks of the Fayoum intermarried with native Egyptians, as did the other nationalities. Hence, the Fayoum became a great melting pot in which racial purity did not long survive. 

Ptolemy II named one of the new settlements on the eastern fringe Philadelphia, meaning "brotherly love", in reference to the sister that he married, Arsinoe. In fact, he also renamed the whole province in her honor, calling it the Arsinoite nome. Prior to this, the Greeks had simply known it as "the Marsh". Now, it was divided into a number of districts (merides), which included Heracleides in the north, Themistos in the west and Polemon in the south. Upon her death, Arsinoe was deified by the Fayoum populous, and there was a great Arsinoeia festival held annually in the Fayoum during the month of Misra (August).

Though the Fayoum probably began to decline during the late Greek Period and even as early as the reign of Ptolemy II, after the fall of Cleopatra to Augustus in 30 BC, the prosperity continued for some time. What the Romans found in the Fayoum was a Hellenized landowner gentry in the towns, while the Egyptians worked and lived in the more rural areas. They also found clogged canals and broken dikes, and Augustus ordered the Roman army into the Fayoum to clean and repair the water system. 

But as that great empire became unstable and began to disintegrate, so too did the Fayoum. Under a corrupt local government and mismanagement, along with an atmosphere of general economic depression, the successful Ptolemaic irrigation system once again gradually fell into disrepair, and much good land was lost, some forever, to the desert. Between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD, the towns of Karanis, Bacchias, Philadelphia, Tebtunis and Dionysias declined and were eventually abandoned. 

In addition, while the income of the people in the Fayoum was relatively high, the average poll tax was twice that of any other place in Egypt. Finally, Rome exacted too much from the Fayoum, and the population, which was always rebellious, began to decline. The region was also hit hard by plague. 

In 395 AD, the Roman Empire was partitioned, and Egypt came under the rule of the eastern emperor, ruling from Byzantium. Christianity had become the official religion of the empire, and in the Fayoum their was once as many as thirty-five monasteries. But the Egyptian church split with the Byzantine in 451 due to a doctrinal issue. For much of Egypt, the Byzantine rule was not popular, and when the Arabs came in 640, they were generally welcomed. By then, many Egyptians be