Canal of the Pharaohs

[5] Another possibility is that it was finished in the Ptolemaic period under Ptolemy II, when engineers solved the problem of overcoming the difference in height through canal locks.

[6][7][8][9] At least as far back as Aristotle there have been suggestions that perhaps as early as the 12th Dynasty, Pharaoh Senusret III (1878–1839 BC), called Sesostris by the Greeks, may have started a canal joining the River Nile with the Red Sea.

Next comes the Tyro tribe and, on the Red Sea, the harbour of the Daneoi, from which Sesostris, king of Egypt, intended to carry a ship-canal to where the Nile flows into what is known as the Delta; this is a distance of over 60 miles.

[17] After the death of Alexander the Great, the general Ptolemy gained control of Egypt, declared himself Pharaoh and began the Ptolemaic dynasty.

[18] Ptolemy II is credited by some for being the first to solve the problem of keeping the Nile free of salt water when his engineers invented the lock around 274/273 BC.

[19] The canal was reconstructed by Roman emperor Trajan,[20] who moved its mouth on the Nile further south to what is now Old Cairo, and named it Amnis Traianus after himself.

[20] Islamic texts discuss the canal, which they say had been silted up, but was reopened in 641 or 642 AD by 'Amr ibn al-'As, the commander of the Muslim army in Egypt.

[14] The canal's remaining section near the Nile, known as the Khalij, continued to serve a local function as part of Cairo's water infrastructure up until the late 1890s, when it was completely filled in and converted into what is now Port Said Street.

Following the discovery of a direct sea route to India via the Cape of Good Hope by Portugal, the Venetians and Mamluks negotiated with each other to fund the construction of a new canal in order to weaken Portuguese trade.

However, the Ottoman conquest of Egypt by Selim I and its subsequent annexation ended any hopes for Venice to maintain their trade dominance in the Mediterranean.