Fayyum, a fertile province of Central Egypt, lies W. of the Nile, 65 miles from Cairo, is in reality a southern oasis in the Libyan desert, irrigated by means of a canal running through a narrow gorge to the Nile valley; its area is about 840 sq. m., a portion of which is occupied by a sheet of water, the Birket-el-Kern (35 m. long), known to the ancients as Lake Moeris, and by the shores of which stood one of the wonders of the world, the famous “Labyrinth.”
Population (circa 1900) given as 160,000.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Fayal * Feasts, Jewish, of Dedication