Founded ca. 270 BC- abandoned ca. AD 650 The village of Karanis is located in the northern part of the Fayum Oasis, south-west of today’s Calro; the modern name of the place is Kom Aushim, easily to be reached on the highway to the Fayum from Cairo. After approx. 60 km from the pyramids of Giza, you see the remains of ancient Karanis on your left-hand side. Like many other villages in the Fayoum, Karanis was
The pedestals of Biahmu
Al Sanam -The Idol
The remains of two large stone pedestals that once supported colossi of Amenemhat III stand just north of the small village of Biahmu, some 7 Kilometers north of Fayoum .The two large pedestals somewhat ruinous, but essentially complete stone ,light yellow in color and now partly supported by Department of Antiquities bricks.
Hawara Pyramid ( The Last of the great Egyptian Pyramids )
Amenemhet III was the last great ruler of the Middle kingdom as numerous inscriptions on monuments from Syria to the third cataract on Nile testify
Hawara’s historical site is not only famous for its pyramid and its mortuary temple. It’s also famous because in 1888 professor Petrie discovered in the tombs around the pyramid, the first of the famous fayoum portraits, the incredibly lifelike portraits that were attached to the mummies of the deceased settlers of roman era in the fayoum. portraits were found in other parts of the fayoum and in other parts of Egypt but most of those we now see in museums around the world were found here at Hawara.
Obelisk of Senusret I
About 13 meters high red-granite obelisk, Originally, it was erected in a village called Abgig few kilometers/miles far from the Fayoum City.
Fayoum Portraits
Mummy portraits or Fayum portraits are the most astonishing body of painting to have come to us from the ancient world, they are remarkable for their social importance and for their quality as art.
In the late 1880s some mysterious portraits started to reach Western Europe and the United States of America. They came from Egypt’s Fayoum. A large collection was possessed by an Austrian man, Theodor Graf but the better documented ones were found at Hawara by the British archaeologist , W.M. Flinders Petrie.
” Fayoum Portraits ” is the name which has given to describe them because more have been found in the Fayoum Oasis than anywhere else in Egypt.
In technique ; some are painted in encaustic and some in tempera; some are on panel and some on linen ; some show heads only and some entire figures. Some seem to have been painted from life and hung on the wall in frames.