The Fayoum Survey Project: The Themistou Meris. Volume A: The Archaeological and Papyrological Survey

The Themistou Meris was the north-western administrative district of the

Oasis Fayoum in the Graeco-Roman Period, home of Greek speaking settlers

and indigenous Egyptians, who lived side by side in villages, many of

them newly founded by the first Ptolemaic Kings in the 3rd century BC.

The book is the result of an archaeological survey, and small

excavations carried out between 2000 and 2016 in that part of the

Fayoum; it offers descriptions of archaeological remains, many of them

now under threat from land reclamation, gives information about the

history and exact location of single sites, and values the excavations,

which were undertaken there in the beginning of the 20th century, often

with the sole aim of finding papyri, while archaeological features were

neglected. The book seeks to combine the written and the archaeological

evidence, offering new proposals for identifying ancient names with

ancient sites, and gives a panorama of the multicultural society of the

ancient Fayoum.