# What Happened To The Old Suez Canal **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 13, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-old-suez-canal/564020 "2010-12-13T19:15:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-old-suez-canal/564020/1 "2010-12-13T19:15:45Z")
I have read before the present Suez Canal that there were other canals that connected the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea in ancient times. I see the [Canal of the Pharaohs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_of_the_Pharaohs) and it mentions silted up but what happened to other canals in the area? Do we know for sure they existed? And did they just get closed up because of neglect? Or were these canals very different from the present day canal? Basically I wanted to know what happened to the older ones. Or was it just naturally silted up and no one could bother to keep it open? ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-old-suez-canal/564020/2 "2010-12-13T22:16:56Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > Do we know for sure they existed? And did they just get closed up because of neglect? Or were these canals very different from the present day canal? Journal of Middle Eastern Studies article on it here, can’t read the whole thing without paying but the first page seems to make clear that there is textual and archeological evidence. [http://www.jstor.org/pss/545471](http://www.jstor.org/pss/545471) Anyone got access to read the whole article? ---
**Author:** ![RadicalPi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/radicalpi/32/9806_2.png) [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-old-suez-canal/564020/3 "2010-12-13T22:42:18Z")
I can. The article basically states that there is a lot of historical written evidence for two ancient canals, but that the physical evidence has decayed significantly because parts of the old canals are used for agriculture today and other parts have been covered with dunes. > [@](#): > > The current Ismailiah canal has taken over the bed of the ancient northern canal. A 1983 archaeological survey of the Wadi Tumilat found other canal spoil bank remains in only four areas of the valley: Gezirat al-Khadra (Site 44), located along the southern edge of the western part of the Wadi; Bir- ket Um Qadah (Site 59) and Shaykh Salim (Site 64), both found on the southern fringe of the central portion of the Wadi; and Tell al-Gamalayn (Site 28), situated in the eastern portion of the Wadi. The canal remnants at Sites 44, 59, and 28 were largely buried and not easily distinguishable from the surrounding ground surface. Only the high banks located at Site 64, Shaykh Salim, found in the middle of the central part of the Wadi, provided a modern-day witness to the original impressive scope of the canal (132). Carol A. Redmount. “The Wadi Tumilat and the ‘Canal of the Pharaohs.’”_Journal of Near Eastern Studies_ 54.2 (April 1995) 127–135. [The Wadi Tumilat and the "Canal of the Pharaohs" on JSTOR](http://www.jstor.org/pss/545471) ---
**Author:** ![RadicalPi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/radicalpi/32/9806_2.png) [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-old-suez-canal/564020/4 "2010-12-13T22:47:32Z")
Oh, as far as what happened to the canals, they required a lot of upkeep. > [@](#): > > The magnitude of the planning, technical skill, and labor involved in the excavation, and, equally important, the constant maintenance of a large-scale navigation canal should not be underestimated. […] Muhammad Ali used a corvée of 80,000 fellahin to excavate his Wadi Canal. […] Even considering that these two nineteenth century canals were perennial and therefore may have required a somewhat greater amount of labor than the ancient waterway, the creation and upkeep of the latter canal would have required tremendous human resources. Only an aggressively strong and committed central government would have been capable of the herculean planning and labor mobilization needed for such an endeavor. _Ibid._ ---
**Author:** ![Walther\_Ego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8dc957/32.png) [@Walther\_Ego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walther_Ego)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-old-suez-canal/564020/5 "2010-12-14T12:43:30Z")
Until the the damn in Assuan, Nile was known for its mud. Prevention of silting of a canal that actually links river Nile and the Red Sea is way harder than for a canal with sea water and little flow.