Lake Mariout

Lake Mariout (

In antiquity, the lake was much larger than it is now, extending further to the south and west and occupying around 700 square kilometres (270 sq mi). It had no mouth connecting it to the Mediterranean, being fed with Nile water via a number of canals. By the twelfth century the lake had dwindled to a collection of salt lakes and salt flats^[3] and it had dried up by the Late Middle Ages.^[4]

At least 250 years ago, the lake was fresh water, and much of it would dry up during the period just before the Nile flooded again. A storm in 1770 breached the sea wall at Abu Qir, creating a seawater lake known as Lake Abu Qir. The salt waters were kept separate from Lake Mariout by the canal that allowed fresh water to travel from the Nile to Alexandria. As part of the Siege of Alexandria, on 13 March 1801, the British cut the canal, allowing a great rush of sea water from Lake Abu Qir into Lake Mariout. Lake Abu Qir ceased to exist, and Lake Mariout became brackish instead of fresh.^[5]

When the British opened the lake to the sea in Napoleon's time it caused a salt-water flood that destroyed 150 villages.

Lake Mariout is separated from the Mediterranean Sea by the narrow isthmus on which the city of Alexandria was built. The lake shore is home to fisheries and saltworks. As far back as the early 1900s, it was documented that salt was being refined from the western part of the lake.^[7]

According to some records, a homonymous nome was located on the shores of this lake.^[8]

Abusir

The seaside town of Abusir, known in ancient times as Taposiris Magna, lies on the shore of Lake Mariout. Ruins of an ancient temple and an ancient replica of the

There was a bishopric of Mareotes, in the

It has had the following incumbents, so far of the fitting episcopal (lowest) rank:[13]

• Antonios Aziz Mina (21 December 2002 – 3 January 2006) as Bishop of Curia of the Coptic Catholic Patriarchate of Alexandria (Egypt) ([19 December 2002] 21 December 2002 – 3 January 2006), followed by Eparch (Bishop) of Guizeh of the Copts (Egypt) (3 January 2006 – 23 January 2017)
• Botros Fahim Awad Hanna (6 September 2006 – 8 April 2013) of the Coptic Catholic Patriarchate of Alexandria as Bishop of Curia of Egypt of the Copts ([31 August 2006] 6 September 2006 – 8 April 2013), followed by Eparch (Bishop) of Minya of the Copts (Egypt) ([25 March 2013] 8 April 2013 – ...)
• Cesar Essayan, Order of Friars Minor Conventual (O.F.M. Conv.) (2 August 2016 – ...) as Apostolic Vicar of Beirut (Lebanon).

Ancient findings

In 2015 a stele, resembling the Rosetta Stone and dating back some 2200 years, was discovered in the Taposiris Magna Temple site at Lake Mariout. Measuring 41 by 25.6 by 7 inches (104 by 65 by 18 cm), its message commemorates two Ptolemaic pharaohs and Queen Consort Cleopatra I Syra. There are ancient tombs located on the shores of the lake.^{[citation needed]}

Fish species

The fish species Nile perch lives in the lake although its principal habitat is fresh water, and the lake contains some salt. In 1939, a small lake, called the Nozha Hydrodrome was "isolated from Lake Mariout" and this allowed for the Nile perch to flourish there.^[2]

In literature

• W. B. Yeats refers to the lake as the Mareotic Lake in his poem Under Ben Bulben.
• Lawrence Durrell writes about the lake using its ancient name Lake Mareotis in his tetralogy of novels The Alexandria Quartet, where it is the setting for a duck shoot.^[14]
• World War Two
  .

See also

• Abu Qir Bay
• List of Catholic dioceses in Egypt

References

Bibliography

• Pius Bonifacius Gams, Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae, Leipzig 1931, p. 460
• Michel Lequien, Oriens christianus in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus, Paris 1740, vol. II, coll. 529-530
• Klaas A. Worp, A Checklist of Bishops in Byzantine Egypt (A.D. 325 - c. 750), in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 100 (1994) 283-318

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lake Mariout.

• GCatholic (Titular) Bishopric of Mareotes