Garden of Egypt is a compelling environmental history of the Fayyum region that traces the interconnections between people and water in premodernity. Taking water as the central theme, Haug investigates the region’s irrigation system and the ways in which the workings (and failings) of the canal system affected the lives of the Fayyum people across centuries, from the Ptolemaic period (late 4th to 1st century BCE) through the Ayyubid period (12th to 13th century CE), with a focus on the pre-Islamic centuries (4th century BCE to 7th century CE). The combined use of Greek papyri from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods with later Arabic papyri and medieval Arabic geographical and administrative texts illuminates aspects of the Fayyum history that remain inaccessible through the Greek papyri alone. For instance, the gradual abandonment of the Fayyum marginal villages beginning with Soknopaiou Nesos in the 3rd century CE—a major focus of the book—is largely absent from the Greek papyri. In contrast, later Arabic sources reveal that the central plain continued to flourish into the 7th and 8th centuries CE, with some villages still active as late as the 13th century.
The first two chapters lay the foundation for the discussions that follow and provide essential insights into how the Bahr Yusuf (the canal connecting the Nile to the Fayyum) and other infrastructures functioned during the Ptolemaic, Roman, and Islamic periods. In particular, Chapter 2 argues that the region’s topography combined with its canal system fostered the emergence of two distinct agricultural zones: a well-irrigated central plain capable of supporting double cropping, and comparatively drier margins suited to single cropping. Haug convincingly demonstrates that the marginal villages likely struggled with water shortages, which in turn impacted their agricultural productivity. He also shows that combining later sources with Roman period papyri can uncover key features of the Fayyum’s hydrological landscape. Both chapters equip scholars with an enhanced framework for analyzing data from the papyri. This allows for a more precise and realistic reconstruction of the year-round challenges experienced by people of the Fayyum across different areas, providing an invaluable tool for interpreting documents and developing a more reliable historical narrative.
Another major focus of the book is the way in which different governments, from the Ptolemaic and Roman administrations to the late Ayyubid state, approached the maintenance of the Fayyum irrigation system. In Chapter 3 Haug reconstructs how water infrastructures operated across different premodern periods and reveals that chronic water supply issues, which in turn affected agricultural productivity, had a particularly severe impact on the marginal villages, from which most of our surviving Greco-Roman papyri originate.
Haug convincingly shows that although both the Ptolemaic and Roman governments were deeply committed to maintaining the efficiency of the canal system, the late Ayyubid state exhibited minimal fiscal interest in Fayyum agriculture, resulting in little effort to maintain rural irrigation. This divergence in state involvement led to the development of different institutional responses. During the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, a form of what Haug calls “rural subjectivity” emerged, enforced through compulsory service in the Roman period. Compulsory service, or liturgies, included maintenance work of dykes and canals and was implemented as a result of the government’s significant economic investment in the region. In contrast, the late Ayyubid period experienced more spontaneous, local self-organization.
In Chapter 4, Haug argues that irrigation practices on the Greco-Roman margins of the Fayyum should not be seen as a product of weak regulation, but rather as adaptive responses to unique environmental circumstances. In this system, water rights were defined as the unobstructed access to the communal canal during flood periods, a feature of an internally regulated, collective system that Haug argues encapsulates the essence of an irrigation community. This interpretation fits well with contemporary evidence on the strength of Egyptian communal institutions, such as large associations of public farmers who pooled together their resources and communal labor to protect their members.
In the final chapter Haug focuses on the demise of the village of Theadelphia in the early 4th century CE, providing an insightful overview of the scholarly debate surrounding the Antonine plague and its impact on the Egyptian population. He convincingly argues that the evidence does not support claims of a high mortality rate, as traces of mortality in the papyri are merely isolated instances. Regarding systemic irrigation problems during and after the epidemic, Haug notes that the only evidence supporting such claims comes from the abrochia declarations. These documents, which allowed farmers to declare that their lands were unflooded and uncultivable for tax exemptions, predate the plague and therefore cannot be seen as an administrative reaction to it. Although a peak in these declarations during the 180s and 190s may hint at the cumulative impact of deteriorating water infrastructure, Haug notes that water shortages were a common challenge at the far-reaching parts of the Fayyum’s canal system, a reality already evident in Ptolemaic and Roman land leases. Flood failures only became more apparent with the introduction of these abrochia declarations, although it remains unclear whether they were prompted by exceptional circumstances. When examining the decline of the Fayyum’s marginal villages, Haug observes that the gradual accumulation of wealth by absentee landowners, often cited as a primary factor alongside the plague, likely interacted with the disease’s effects and other concurrent socioeconomic processes. He also describes how the estate of a wealthy Alexandrian landowner, Appianus, in Theadelphia undermined the irrigation system by displacing numerous smallholders, thereby disrupting the collective labor that was vital for the functioning of the irrigation communities. Haug’s analysis extends to the petitions included in the 4th-century archive of a Theadelphian farmer, Sakaon, in which the few remaining village inhabitants appealed to the state for assistance with irrigation problems. One state response, he argues, reveals a lack of local understanding of the irrigation issues. After Theadelphia’s advocate filed a petition concerning some upstream farmers blocking a shared canal, the Roman praeses (governor) Valerius Ziper ordered that the farmers should take only the water they needed and let the remainder continue downstream. Although the decision appeared reasonable, Haug argues that it overlooked a key issue: Theadelphia’s drastically reduced population could no longer perform the communal maintenance required for the canal system to function. He describes the decline of Theadelphia as a long-developing phenomenon, noting that the crisis was localized rather than universal, as many residents eventually left to start anew elsewhere.
In beautiful prose Haug delivers an insightful interpretation of the Fayyum’s irrigation infrastructure and communities, reshaping our understanding of their socioenvironmental dynamics. He frames the study as primarily an exploration of the intricate interplay between water flow and human agency, while also highlighting the crucial role of later Arabic sources as comparative evidence. This approach undermines the argument that state power simply overrode local initiative. Instead, it shows that irrigation challenges arose from continually shifting interactions among nature, governmental authority, and rural society. By adopting a bottom-up approach and focusing on local realities, Haug not only highlights the unique character of the Fayyum, but also presents a more optimistic view of the population and productivity in Roman Egypt. As Haug also notes, this work shifts the focus of ancient Mediterranean socioenvironmental history toward the everyday lived experiences of nature. The book’s primary contribution lies in its detailed examination of daily human–water entanglements, dynamics that have historically shaped, and continue to influence, the water systems and landscape of the Fayyum.
