BANI SUWAYF

also spelled Beni Suef, city, capital of Bani Suwayf muhafazah (governorate), northern Upper Egypt. It is an important agricultural trade centre on the west bank of the Nile, 70 mi (110 km) south of Cairo. In the 9th and 10th dynasties (c. 21602040 BC), Heracleopolis (modern Ihnasiyat al-Madinah), 10 mi west of the modern city, was the capital of kings who ruled Lower and Middle Egypt. During the first millennium BC a Libyan family settled there and gained sovereignty over all of Egypt, founding the 22nd dynasty (c. 950c. 730 BC). Later, though losing political importance, it remained an important city. In later centuries Bani Suwayf became the chief town of the second province of Upper Egypt, attaining special prominence under the Turkish governor and the autonomous ruler Muhammad 'Ali (ruled 180548). Bani Suwayf's industries, mostly agriculturally related, include flour milling, cotton ginning, and textile manufacturing. Alabaster is quarried near the capital. Perennial irrigation water is supplied by the large Bahr Yusuf Canal. It is on the main rail line along the Nile; a branch railroad connects it to the al-Fayyum oasis complex of agricultural settlements. The oldest mosque, Jami' al-Bahr, has a shrine that is locally venerated. Pop. (1986 prelim.) 151,813. muhafazah (governorate), lying along the Nile River in northern Upper Egypt, with an extension into the Western Desert at its southern end, with al-Fayyum governorate to the west and north and al-Minya to the south. Its cultivated, settled area consists mainly of a strip of the Nile River Valley floodplain, extending about 50 mi (80 km) northsouth and 15 mi in width at its widest point, near Bani Suwayf city. It has a total settled area of 510 sq mi (1,322 sq km). Because the river throughout history has eroded away the eastern bank, it now embraces only a narrow, gravelly plain terminating abruptly below the bluffs of the Eastern Desert. In 1964 Bani Suwayf muhafazah pioneered a nationally supervised cooperative-farming scheme in which scattered land holdings were consolidated into large units. Cotton, grains, beans, and sugarcane are the principal crops, and chickens and pigeons are also raised. The capital, Bani Suwayf (q.v.), is a regional market. In the Eastern Desert alabaster is quarried, and there are iron-ore deposits in the desert to the west. Among the muhafazah's antiquities are the 3rd-dynasty (c. 26862613 BC) pyramid of Huni at Maydum, and the ruins of ancient Heracleopolis lie near the village of Ihnasiyat al-Madinah, west of Bani Suwayf city near the Bahr Yusuf, an irrigation canal, which turns north of the site into al-Fayyum governorate. The CairoAswan railway stops at Bani Suwayf city, from where a branch runs into al-Fayyum. Pop. (1990 est.) 1,586,000.