Talk:Faiyum

Redirected?
I removed the redirect to talk:Faiyum Governorate and put a see also link in THIS article to Faiyum Governorate as this needs to have its own talk page, not redirected to another. - Jeeny Talk 06:35, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Al Fayyum
This article makes a broad assumption about Greek settlers which can be misleading without representing other settlements and inhabitants. I will get back to this when I have more time to elaborate. - Jeeny Talk 06:23, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Fayyum vs Faiyum
I put a request for moving this page from Al Fayyum to Faiyum. All my English references list the name as Faiyum, and "Al Fayyum" is a mere transliteration from Arabic. What do you guys think? Thanks. --Lanternix 01:32, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The modern Arabic is Al-Fayum. I think, Fayum is better, than Faiyum. I would wait for more consensus. Maybe redirects? There's Fayoum, Al Fayoum, Al Fayum, Fayum, Fayyum and El Faiyûm. whew! How about getting Egyptians to comment on this, most speak English?
 * Here is something about the name:
 * The Fayum
 * The name of the Fayum province


 * In a few texts from the Old Kingdom the Fayum is known as Sy-rsy "the southern lake" [Piacentini 1997, pp.21-24]. From the Middle Kingdom onwards the traditional name of the Fayum is tA Sy, "the land of the lake" (Wörterbuch V, p.226) or tA Sy Sbk "land of the lake of Sobek" (for instance in the Kahun papyri) and its synonym pA ym, "the lake", a Semitic loan word, which replaced sy from the New Kingdom onwards. In hieroglyphic texts the old name lives on into the Ptolemaic period, e.g. on the statue of Anchouy, governor of the Fayum (TA-Sy) in the time of Nectanebo or even Ptolemy I [Vandersleyen 1999, fiche 150, p.255] or in the nome processions [Yoyotte 1962b, p.104]. The learned hieroglyphic language even used the famous wAD wr "the Great Green" for the Fayum lake [Yoyotte 1962b, p.91 and n.2; Vandersleyen 1999, pp.75-77]. In documentary demotic texts from the 6th to the 2nd centuries BC the Fayum is called pA tS n p3 ym, "the nome of the lake" (e.g. P.Mallawi dem. 1-3; P.Lille dem. I 32 l.13). The Greek translation hJ Livmnh is only found in a few documents dated before 257 BC. In P.Rev. Laws col.71 l.10; P.Petrie III 56a l.7 and 56b l.13, three texts from about 259 BC, Livmnh becomes "officialised" into Limnivth". Shortly afterwards the nome was renamed Arsinoites nomos after queen Arsinoe II, who was deified by her brother Ptolemy II immediately after her death in 270 BC [for the death of Arsinoe, see Cadell 1998 and Minas 1998, p.43 n.1]. It took another ten years before this new honour was added to the many others, since the earliest examples date from about 257 BC (P.Col. Zen. II 62, l.10; PCZ I 59041 l.3). The change of name was also followed in demotic, where all official and notarial documents now have pA tS n ArsynA, "the nome of Arsinoe", though here the old name is used unofficially at least up to the 2nd cent. BC, e.g. in P.Oxf. Grifftih 28 (132 BC). With a short interruption during the invasion of Antiochos IV in 168 BC, when the nome was officially styled "Krokodilopolites" (P.Teb. III 698), the name Arsinoites was to last for over a thousand years, until the very end of the Byzantine period. It even led to a name change of the nome capital into "city of the Arsinoites", short "Arsinoe". But probably the native Egyptians continued to call it "the lake district" in ordinary conversation, and in Coptic the old Egyptian name P3-ym reemerges as Peiom (Sahidic), Phiom (Bohairic), Piam (Fayumic), used both for the nome (tosh, tash) and for its capital (polis) (cf. Roquet 1973, p.4). The modern Arabic name Al-Fayum (and Medinet Al-Fayum) directly descends from this [cf. Vycichl 1983, p.64].
 * - Jeeny Talk 01:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I would go with whatever gets the most hits (and create redirects for the rest per Jeeny), but either way "Al Fayyum" really needs to go. — Zerida 02:28, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Zerida, what do you think the name should actually be? Faiyum? You are from Egypt and USA, and I'm sure you know much better than I. I would respect whichever you suggest. - Jeeny Talk 03:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, Faiyum actually corresponds better with the proper local pronunciation, so I can see why Lanternix would want to use that transliteration (in addition to the references he uses). So, if you want my opinion as someone from Egypt, I would go with Faiyum. However, I think the standard on Wikipedia is to go by the number of Google hits, so I am not so sure. We may need to pull other opinions. — Zerida 04:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your response, Zerida. As for Google hits, I remember being reprimanded before when I used that as an argument (I forget the context and the subject off hand). Someone posted a link (which I didn't click), but I assumed it was meant that the number of Google hits was not a good argument to justify something or another. I'll try to find that in Wiki guidelines, somewhere -- or better yet, I'll ask someone who is familiar with Wiki policies regarding Google.--- Well, on second (3rd?) thought; Since you and Lanternix agree to the same name, perhaps Lanternix can help with the renaming and the best way to do so, without losing the direction to any related topics. (In other words, forget everything I said before. Faiyum it should be! :)- Jeeny Talk 04:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Hey guys, thanks for helping out with this! All the sources I use, such as "Cultural Atlas of Ancient Egypt, by Baines and Malek" use Faiyum. I'm an Egyptian and would agree with Zerida that Faiyum is the best transliteration of the name. Al Fayyum is blatantly wrong and really needs to go. Thanks again guys. --Lanternix 00:38, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I took care of it guys and put a request for move. Hopefully we'll see this happening soon. Thanks again guys (or girls) :) --Lanternix 00:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Lanternix! (we're girls. lol. but I don't mind the "guys" comment. like yousguys :)) - Jeeny Talk 02:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

so, looks like the move is harder than I had thought. I need your help here guys/girls :) The proposal has been moved from "uncontroversial" to "incomplete and contested". I think it will go through if both of you could back me up there. I also made a similar request to move Suhaj to Sohag. Please back me up on this one as well if you garee, otherwise, we could discuss that issue further on the Suhaj talk page. Thanks enromously! --Lanternix 14:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Al-Fayoum is a the location mentioned in the Paulo Coelho book "The Alchemist" and might be worth a mention. It might also add something to this discussion.  I agree that an Egyptian should be brought in on the decision on the spelling.  We English speakers are notoriously poor at arriving at agreements on spellings of words from Arabic.  My Palestinian PoliSci teacher made the point by counting up 17 different spellings of Qaddafi in the English language media during the 80s!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thechindi (talk • contribs) 14:10, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

City vs Region

 * Hi, I have reverted your major undiscussed edit to Faiyum and Faiyum Governorate, which you made on the grounds that "Faiyum only means the town". For example, a short Google search for "Faiyum" will show many pages outside Wikipedia (e.g. http://www.grisel.net/faiyum.htm) that use the name Faiyum (or Fayyum or Fayum) to mean the whole of the Faiyum depression. Traditionally the name Faiyum (derived via Coptic from the Ancient Egyptian for "great water") meant Lake Moeris, or the depression that it lay in. Use of the name Faiyum for the town is quite recent: the town was formerly called Madīnat al Faiyūm = "the town of (= in) the Faiyum", and the town's name being shortened to only Faiyum is recent. Please discuss this. Anthony Appleyard 16:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * What do people think about this? I believe we need to keep Faiyum for the city, and Faiyum Governorate for the larger area/region. Thanks. --Lanternix 17:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree to keep them separate, or else combine them into one article. As it is, and I'm afraid, it's going to become too confusing. I'm trying to figure what's what in the article now. It repeats itself, goes off into different directions that are not clear, etc. IMO. - Jeeny Talk 17:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok Jeeny, can you please refrain from editing the article till we reach an agreement? :) Let's just decide what we will do first then start working on it together. I feel the best thing to do is to have 2 articles, one would be Faiyum about the city, and one Faiyum Governorate about the political entity (the governorate) and the region as a whole. Alternatively, we can also have a third page (something like Faiyum Oasis ?) for the region, and keep Faiyum Governorate for the governorate alone. But to have Faiyum meaning the region is misleading, I feel. When people in Egypt say Faiyum it almost always means the city. Sure enough the region was historically also called Faiyum, but it's not now. Thanks :) --Lanternix 17:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree about the city being different from the region. I was trying to make sense of the article, and having a difficult time. I will stop editing it as you asked, as I'm so confused anyway. :) - Jeeny Talk 17:33, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * As I found the pages Faiyum and Faiyum Governorate (or whatever they were spelled then), they were rather untidy: for example, matter about the town was duplicated in both pages; matter about the depression was partly in one page and partly in the other. I felt that I had to separate the three subjects and avoid content forking: The town. The Fayyum depression. The governorate, which includes the depression and also various dry areas outside the depression. What then do modern Egyptians call the Faiyum depression nowadays? Anthony Appleyard 18:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Modern Egyptians would call it Faiyum Oasis if they want to be very accurate, but they usually don't talk about the region. The expression Faiyum depression is virtually absent from daily Egyptian vocabulary (I personally wouldn't even know how to call that in Arabic). Some may also refer to the Region of Faiyum. But the point is that, when the Faiyum Governorate was founded, they made it to encompass the whole region of Faiyum. So now the governorate and the region are basically the same thing. That's why I feel it makes much more sense to keep Faiyum for the city, and include the rest of the information about the governorate / the Region / the depression in Faiyum Governorate. Makes sense? Thanks. --Lanternix 18:08, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * For the third time, Anthony Appleyard keeps editing articles while we are still discussing them. I'm reverting everything back to my version until the issue is settled. This attitude is not acceptable. --Lanternix 18:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, the discussion is about what material to keep each in this article and in the one about the Faiyum Governorate. In this case, I think we should simply stick to the standard followed on other governorates. For example, there is the town Giza and there is the larger Giza Governorate which includes the towns Giza, Atfih, Memphis and a collection of smaller villages. It makes more sense to me to follow this guideline, so keeping general information about the governorate in its own page and information about the town here. Perhaps we should create Faiyum (disambiguation) for this purpose.

On a different note, Faiyum mummy portraits is a specialized topic, more about the portraits than about the town. In my experience, "Fayum" is much more frequently used in English-language literature, and there was a separate discussion there about keeping the transliteration to 'Fayum'. I think the portraits article should stick to that convention as well, and leave a small note that there are alternative spellings. — Zerida 19:16, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree or re-renaming Faiyum mummy portraits to Fayum mummy portraits, since everyone on the talk page agrees on that. I would, however, stick to Faiyum as the name of the city/region within the article. Concerning the main issue here, I totally agree with you Zerida to stick to the convention of Faiyum/Giza (=city) and Faiyum Governorate/Giza Governorate (=larger region). Thanks! --Lanternix 19:45, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Anthony Appleyard 20:14, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems that we need pages about:-
 * The Faiyum Governorate.
 * The Faiyum Oasis, which is not the same as the governorate area.
 * Faiyum town, which should contain a note that formerly, and sometimes now, "Faiyum" meant the Faiyum oasis.

I have created the file Faiyum Oasis, which contains matter which disappeared during Lanternix;'s edits of Faiyum and Faiyum Governorate. Anthony Appleyard 20:29, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Anthony, I went ahead and created a disambiguation page for Faiyum because disambiguating here makes the page look very cluttered. See the article on Egypt, for example. Thanks for creating Faiyum Oasis.


 * Lanternix, sorry for not being clear, I agree that 'Faiyum' should remain as the transliteration for the name of the town/governorate. However, since everyone agrees, I'm also going to move back the mummy portraits page to its previous name. — Zerida 20:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Lake Moeris now conains history matter which someone deleted; I salvaged it from an old edit version of page Faiyum. Anthony Appleyard 21:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * No worries Zerida, I totally agree with reverting back to Fayum mummy portraits. The page about Lake Moeris should contain the history of the lake, so I brought it back. It's not convenient to put a note there saying refer to page X for the history of the Lake! I will go back and see if there are minor edits to make on the newly formed pages, Faiyum, Faiyum Oasis and Faiyum Governorate. Thanks. --Lanternix 22:06, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh, good! I was concerned about the Fayum mummy portraits being re-named. Glad everyone agrees. You are so smart, Zerida. - Jeeny Talk 00:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * :) By the way, I restored the small mummy portraits overview that seems to have gotten lost in the moves. I hope no other previous information is missing. — Zerida 03:59, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * As for "Faiyum" also meaning the oasis: I have provided references. Note also that the hieroglyphic spelling of "Faiyum" which User:Zerida provided, ends in triplicate N35 (surface of water) followed by N36 (channel with water in), which both are determinants for "river, lake, sea", and not the determinant for "inhabited place" (plan of four buildings at a crossroads, Gardiner O 49, niwt). Anthony Appleyard 04:57, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I clearly have no problem with the word referring the oasis as well (hence the name I initially suggested Faiyum Oasis). I have a problem, however, with claiming that the name was originally exclusive to the Oasis and not the city. If anything, the name was originally referring to the Moeris Lake, which the Egyptians called the Sea. Then the lake gave this reference to both the city and the region. I found no sources to suggest that the region was named "Efiom" first, then gave this name to the city. Thanks. --Lanternix 13:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Map templates in languages portlet?
Why are there links to map templates in the first lines of the "languages" portlet? I've seen it on other pages, too. Is it generated by a buggy tool? Why can't I find those lines in the history? If I view the last version in the history, it just looks fine. Strange. --Stupid girl (talk) 23:37, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I stumbled upon the Faiyum article by chance; while reading I noticed and corrected an issue that someone with a more vested interest in this article could do something really great with.

I removed this line from the text "Undisputed remains of early anthropoids date from the late Eocene and early Oligocene, about 34 million years ago, in the Fayyum area, southwest of Cairo, Egypt. One of the earliest fossil primates at Fayum is Catopithecus, dating to around 35 million years ago."

The sentence had no citation attesting to remains being found, let alone that the remains are "Undisputed remains of early anthropoids date from the late Eocene and early Oligocene. The information does appear correct and there are rederect links to wikipedia pages discussing the finds in more detail, but wikipedia itself is not considered a reliable source according to Wiki guidelines. There were a few Grammar and spelling mistakes, including Faiyum being spelled two different ways, each one different from the articles title spelling. The actual thing that jumped out at me was that the sentence inexplicably appears in the section on the Faiyum mummy portraits.

I see that there are several articles (Faiyum, Faiyum Oasis and Crocodilopolis), The Faiyum Oasis article seems like the preferred location for this information since it already briefly mentions both the history of the area and its archaeology, whereas this article focuses on the city.

I recommend a modification to the last sentences in the introduction. The old wording was...

"The town occupies part of the ancient site of Crocodilopolis. Founded in around 4000 BC, it is the oldest city in Egypt and one of the oldest cities in Africa."

The sentence makes a distinction between Crocodilopolis and Faiyum, but with the phrasing of the next sentence it then becomes ambiguous as to what was founded in 4000BC. I was left wondering, was Faiyum was founded around 4000BC atop the ruins of Crocodilopolis, or whether Crocodilopolis was founded around 4000BC, or if a direct relationship exists between the modern city of Faiyum and Crocodilopolis and as such Faiyum as a city was founded around 4000BC and was once known as Crocodiloplis and it merely rests upon the foundations of its ancient incarnations. The article does a good job of clearing all of this up later in the article both through the text and links but we shouldn't be left wondering these things after reading the introduction. I'm not making any modifications to the introduction myself because I am just passing through and simply not knowledgeable enough to make any edits of the quality others who have contributed to this article could. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noexit2002 (talk • contribs) 05:31, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Unsourced Material
I stumbled upon the Faiyum article by chance; while reading I noticed and corrected an issue that someone with a more vested interest in this article could do something really great with.

I removed this line from the text

"Undisputed remains of early anthropoids date from the late Eocene and early Oligocene, about 34 million years ago, in the Fayyum area, southwest of Cairo, Egypt. One of the earliest fossil primates at Fayum is Catopithecus, dating to around 35 million years ago."

The sentence had no citation attesting to remains being found, let alone that the remains are "Undisputed remains of early anthropoids date from the late Eocene and early Oligocene. The information does appear correct and there are rederect links to wikipedia pages discussing the finds in more detail, but wikipedia itself is not considered a reliable source according to Wiki guidelines. There were a few Grammar and spelling mistakes, including Faiyum being spelled two different ways, each one different from the articles title spelling. The actual thing that jumped out at me was that the sentence inexplicably appears in the section on the Faiyum mummy portraits.

I see that there are several articles (Faiyum, Faiyum Oasis and Crocodilopolis), The Faiyum Oasis article seems like the preferred location for this information since it already briefly mentions both the history of the area and its archaeology, whereas this article focuses on the city.

I recommend a modification to the last sentences in the introduction. The old wording was...

"The town occupies part of the ancient site of Crocodilopolis. Founded in around 4000 BC, it is the oldest city in Egypt and one of the oldest cities in Africa."

The sentence makes a distinction between Crocodilopolis and Faiyum, but with the phrasing of the next sentence it then becomes ambiguous as to what was founded in 4000BC. I was left wondering, was Faiyum was founded around 4000BC atop the ruins of Crocodilopolis, or whether Crocodilopolis was founded around 4000BC, or if a direct relationship exists between the modern city of Faiyum and Crocodilopolis and as such Faiyum as a city was founded around 4000BC and was once known as Crocodiloplis and it merely rests upon the foundations of its ancient incarnations. The article does a good job of clearing all of this up later in the article both through the text and links but we shouldn't be left wondering these things after reading the introduction. I'm not making any modifications to the introduction myself because I am just passing through and simply not knowledgeable enough to make any edits of the quality others who have contributed to this article could. Noexit2002 (talk) 05:36, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

"Famous sites" or "Famous sights"?
I suspect that the author means the latter rather than the former. Kortoso (talk) 18:52, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * In the case of Egyptian tourism, both work unless someone's describing a specific view. That happens in East Asia but not so much elsewhere. — Llywelyn II   19:32, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

All Greek to me

 * "the Greeks called it Crocodilopolis or Krocodilopolis".

There is no hard C in the Greek alphabet. Sumenu says they called it Κροκοδείλων πόλις. (Krokodeilon polis). Number774 (talk) 11:30, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
 * 6 of one, half dozen the other. It's the Greek name as transcribed into Latin, whose alphabet English happens to use. Similarly, the Greek city was actually Alexandrea or Alexandreia instead of Alexandria. Obviously "Krocodilopolis" was silly: it's either Crocodilopolis, Krokodiloupolis, or Krokodeilon Polis but not a version that half uses straight Greek, half uses Latin, and gets both slightly wrong... unless for some reason that became an English standard form at some point.


 * The proper thing to do isn't to edly use a hypercorrect Greek transcription in the English running text, though. It's to use the most common English form (usually the Latin transcription) and at a single point in a #Name or #History section (or at Wiktionary) to provide the explicitly correct form in Greek with a modern romanization in parentheses: Something like "... Crocodilopolis (, Krokodeilópolis) ... or "... Crocodile City (, Krokodeilópolis; Crocodilopolis) ... " with some cites for the form we're using. You've got this descriptive half-capitalized non-name form ("Krokodeilon polis") that the internet has mistakenly copied from our article; the Greek wiki has the correct modern Greek form (Κροκοδειλούπολις, Krokodeilópolis); and only 10 random Greek articles around the net have what should be the correct ancient Greek form (Κροκοδειλούπολις, Krokodeiloúpolis). Maybe there's something about the transcription from the loanword for crocodile that suppresses the upsilon though. — Llywelyn II   19:29, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Precipitation obviously wrong in inches
1mm does not = zero, 7mm = 0.275", not 0.1. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 15:50, 23 May 2023 (UTC)


 * 1mm is 0.04 inches, which rounds to 0 inches.
 * The 7mm is the yearly total. The total in inches is calculated by summing the rounded figures, hence the low value.
 * This is a template issue, which you can raise here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Weather_box Hypnôs (talk) 22:47, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
 * 1 mm is .0393"; .04 is rounding of that. The misrepresentation of rounding .04 (or .0393) to zero quite predictably produces results that misrepresent reality. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 12:05, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
 * It's rounded to 1 decimal place, therefore 0.0393 is rounded to 0.0, since it's under 0.05. Hypnôs (talk) 12:42, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, obviously. And that's the problem. Rounding, say, 39.0393 to 39 produces only trivial distortion. As the Fayum template illustrates rather strikingly, rounding 0.0393 to 0 produces unacceptable inaccuracy in the single case, nonsense cumulatively. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 13:09, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I raised the issue on the template page, hopefully this is fixed soon. Hypnôs (talk) 13:27, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Good. Thanks. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 19:39, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Move: Fayum, not Faiyum
Per Google Ngram, we've gone out of our way to use the very least common form of the name in English.

The discussion above seems to show the previous decision wasn't based on very careful analysis, just what one user had in some of their books and what another somehow thought the local pronunciation "sounded like" despite Fayum, Fayyum, Faiyum, Fayoum all having the exact same English reading pronunciation: long-A fay followed by a gooey roomy yoom. (Alternatively, the first 3 are the same with a schwa instead, while the last one still has the oo vowel.)

The actual city itself uses Fayoum (http://www.fayoum.gov.eg/tou/about). Per Ngram, Fayum's more generally common and is already where the Wiktionary article is parked. Any other important factors? or just move to Fayum and redirect from the others? — Llywelyn II   19:42, 20 March 2024 (UTC)