Hawara is an archaeological site of
Ancient Egypt, south of the site of
Crocodilopolis ('Arsinoe', also known as 'Medinet al-Faiyum') at the entrance to the depression of the
Fayyum oasis. The first excavations at the site were made by
Karl Lepsius, in 1843.
William Flinders Petrie excavated at Hawara, in 1888, finding
papyri of the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, and, north of the pyramid, a vast
necropolis where he found 146 portraits on coffins dating to the Roman period, famous as being among the very few surviving examples of painted portraits from
Classical Antiquity, the
"Fayoum portraits" illustrated in Roman history textbooks.