Faiyum ( , borrowed from from "the Sea, Lake") is a city in Middle Egypt. Located southwest of Cairo, in the Faiyum Oasis, it is the capital of the modern Faiyum Governorate. Originally called Shedet in Egyptian, the Greeks called it in , and later . It is one of Egypt's oldest cities due to its strategic location. Name and etymology Originally founded by the ancient Egyptians as Shedet, its current name in English is also spelled as Fayum, Faiyum or Al Faiyūm. Faiyum was also previously officially named Madīnet Al Faiyūm (Arabic for The City of Faiyum). The name Faiyum (and its spelling variations) may also refer to the Faiyum Oasis, although it is commonly used by Egyptians today to refer to the city. The modern name of the city comes from Coptic / (whence the proper name ), meaning the Sea or the Lake, which in turn comes from late Egyptian pꜣ-ym of the same meaning, a reference to the nearby Lake Moeris; the extinct elephant ancestor Phiomia was named after it. Ancient history Archaeological evidence has found occupations around the Fayum dating back to at least the Epipalaeolithic. Middle Holocene occupations of the area are most widely studied on the north shore of Lake Moeris, where Gertrude Caton Thompson and Elinor Wight Gardner did a number of excavations of Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic sites, as well as a general survey of the area. Recently the area has been further investigated by a team from the UCLA/RUG/UOA Fayum Project. According to Roger S. Bagnall habitation began in the fifth millennium BC and a settlement was established by the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC) called Shedet (Medinet el-Fayyum). It was the most significant centre of the cult of the crocodile god Sobek (borrowed from the Demotic pronunciation as Soûkhos, and then into Latin as Suchus). In consequence, the Greeks called it "Crocodile City" ( Krokodeilópolis), which was borrowed into Latin as Crocodīlopolis. The city worshipped a tamed sacred crocodile called, in Koine, Petsuchos, "the Son of Soukhos", that was adorned with gold and gem pendants. The Petsoukhos lived in a special temple pond and was fed by the priests with food provided by visitors. When Petsuchos died, it was replaced by another. Under the Ptolemaic Kingdom, the city was for a while called Ptolemais Euergétis (). Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309–246 BC) renamed the city Arsinoë and the whole nome after