Red Sea to the Nile

[Minimalist]

Is there any evidence that the Egyptians considered the idea Min? It would have been within their capabilities, but would they move enough in the way of trade to make the effort worthwhile?

Roy.

That's a really good question but consider that throughout Egyptian history there was a predisposition to marshaling the workforce for large scale public works. I mean, was moving an obelisk from Aswan to the Delta "worthwhile?" Nonetheless, they did it. Was it "cost-effective" to dig a canal so you could move cargoes to the Nile by boat as opposed to loading them on caravans?

That may not have entered into the calculation if the rulers had an ulterior motive.

[Rokcet Scientist]

move cargoes [from the Red Sea] to the Nile by boat

That would infer moving them (the boats with the cargoes) UPstream from the Red Sea to the Nile (you don't want salt water poisoning the fertile delta). Though not making it impossible, it is a considerably complicating factor: it slows the boat's/cargo's progress to a snails pace. Any hand dug canal couldn't possibly have been wide enough to permit proper sailing, with sails, or maneuvering of any kind. So propulsion must have been with poles or draft animals, or slaves!, along the banks. Against the current!

Methinks piling the junk on camelbacks, and on oxen- and donkey drawn carts and wagons, was the preferred way of hauling stuff across the desert (at the north-west end of the Red Sea, near the Nile delta, there's not much of a desert).
Naaah. That canal scenario doesn't make sense.
But then, what will our progeny 5,000 years from now make of the Eiffel Tower? Or of Dubai's Kafkaesque high-rise forest-when-they-had-no-real-estate-problem?

[Minimalist]

That would infer moving them (the boats with the cargoes) UPstream from the Red Sea to the Nile (you don't want salt water poisoning the fertile delta)

I wonder if they knew about that? The Nile's current was probably sufficient to prevent salt water from going up stream.

As far as the boats go, only Suez and Panama are big enough to allow ocean going vessels to cross unless there are some smaller ones elsewhere. The "Erie Canal" idea of using smaller, flat-bottomed craft to carry cargo seems to be more prevalent and the poling/pull by mules idea is certainly common. If only they had roads and ox carts they could have used them.

[Digit]

I have only argued as to the engineering feasibilty of a water route, not whether there was one.
I pointed out that the Red Sea has a higher sea level than the Med, TBH I would be surprised if the Egyptians were aware of that, so what does that mean?
For a lock less route the connecting point with the Nile would have to be higher than the Red Sea to keep the salt water out, thus the Nile end would have to be down south, a long way away from the most of the population in the delta, also, as RS pointed out, any transport would be against the prevailing current.
Solution? A flash lock. But in view of the distance from the delta, if they start so far south, would probably have made the whole enterprise pointless.
Alternative number two. A salt water channel from the Red Sea that stops a short distance from the Nile, there you construct a dock and tranship goods to Nile boats, pack animal etc etc.
As an engineer I would not have considered option one for a variety of reasons instead gone for option two.

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

That would infer moving them (the boats with the cargoes) UPstream from the Red Sea to the Nile (you don't want salt water poisoning the fertile delta)

I wonder if they knew about that?

If they didn't they would have found out, wouldn't they?

The Nile's current was probably sufficient to prevent salt water from going up stream.

Probably. So the current in that canal would be DOWNstream from the Nile, and UPstream for laden barges from the Red Sea to the Nile.

As far as the boats go, only Suez and Panama are big enough to allow ocean going vessels to cross unless there are some smaller ones elsewhere. The "Erie Canal" idea of using smaller, flat-bottomed craft to carry cargo seems to be more prevalent and the poling/pull by mules idea is certainly common. If only they had roads and ox carts they could have used them.

If they dug a canal they had banks/levees. If they had banks/levees, they had 'roads'/tracks specifically suitable for pulling barges (we had them alongside every canal for a millennium).
I seem to remember oxen in hieroglyphs, so they had those too.
For ox carts the wheel would have been necessary of course, and current wisdom says the ancient Egyptians didn't know the wheel until the middle of the 2nd millennium BC.
So according to that concept any canal would have been a later development. The later the development of that canal, the more remnants should be expected to be left for us to find.
For overland freight hauling on camelback or donkeys no 'roads' are required. Just watch any caravanserai. In due course they would nevertheless automatically create tracks/'roads' along their set routes, however.

[Digit]

I wonder if they knew about that?

They would have to be blind not to Min, salt water in the delta must limit the area of cultivation once you near the Med.
A lockless channel from the Nile would be a 'Mini Nile', another Nile channel, and I would expect them to exploit it for irrigation etc in exactly the same manner as the main channel. Also, aside from the water supply being cut off, I see no more reason for it to vanish than the main channel.
A salt water channel, stopped short of the Nile, would bring supplies nearer to the delta and for most of its length would have no current.
But it would vanish in very short order once dredging ceased.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

I ran a search for Art ancient egypt old kingdom and came up with this


http://www.art.com/products/p14199962-s ... 60e1ca7e41


showing a 4th dynasty chariot complete with wheels. The 4th dynasty being the early 3'd millenium but, there were not many examples and many of the pastoral scenes reflected farming and even some oxen with nary a cart to be seen.

Perhaps, for whatever reason, they elected not to develop wheeled vehicles? I can only guess it is because the river provided their highway.

[Minimalist]

So according to that concept any canal would have been a later development.

If I'm not mistaken that article on canals guessed that any talk of a canal prior to the first millenium was "speculative" although there may have been a natural waterway to the Red Sea at one time. The canal dates to the Saite period (26th Dynasty c 600 BC) and was finished by the Persians.

So yeah. That constitutes a "later development" in my book, too.

[Digit]

What route did the Persian one take Min?

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Again, from that web site on Page 1 of the thread.

[kbs2244]

The sea levels may be different but the river level would have to be higher for the branch of the delta to flow into the Red Sea.
(Remember that rivers do flow downhill.)

There is a US example of this at New Orleans.
(And I expect at any river port that does not have a in and out tidal flow.)
There is a 6 foot difference in the river level at NO and the adjacent Lake Pontcharain, which is at sea level.
There is a lock to make the trip.
I think NO is about 60 miles upstream from the actual mouth of the river into the Gulf.
So there is a 6 foot difference between river level and sea level at NO.

There would have to be a similar difference between river level at Memphis and Red Sea level for the delta branch to exist.

BTW.
If there is a difference in sea levels, does that mean the is a current in the Suez Canal?

AND;
One of the busiest canals in the world is the for ocean going ships at the base of the Danish peninsula between the Baltic and the North seas.
The ships travel at their own power.

Also, I believe the only time the ships are towed in the Panama Canal is when they are in the actual locks.

[Digit]

Thanks Min, again, I've not been able to open any of those links.
I wonder which way the water flowed, if at all?

The sea levels may be different but the river level would have to be higher for the branch of the delta to flow into the Red Sea.

Quite, which is why I pointed out that without locks the Nile end would have to be well south of the delta.

If there is a difference in sea levels, does that mean the is a current in the Suez Canal?

There is, generally from the Red Sea into the Med, quite a lot of tropical species have made their homes in the Eastern Med, not all welcome.


Roy.

[Minimalist]

Since you can't access the link ( odd, in and of itself) here's the relevant text.

The easternmost of the seven arms of the Nile used to flow into the Red Sea, east through the depression of Wadi Tumilat into the area taken up nowadays by the Bitter Lakes and from there south to the Red Sea. This gave the ancient Egyptians a direct naval link to East Africa, Arabia and possibly even India. The Tumilat canal seems to have become repeatedly obstructed and reconnected.
The existence of a direct link between the Nile and the Red Sea before the first millennium BCE is speculative. The first documents possibly referring to such a link date to the late Old Kingdom. According to this theory the northern part of this waterway was not navigable anymore by the time of Pepi II. Dismantled ships were transported to the Bitter Lakes and reassembled there [4]. The open sea was reached through the natural waterways connecting the Bitter Lakes and the Red Sea. By the Middle Kingdom the southern part of this route had become blocked too, and under Mentuhotep III Punt had to be reached through Wadi Hammamat. The Tumilat canal was possibly restored during the 12th dynasty and was seemingly navigable during the reigns of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III who made intensive use of their navy for both economic and military ventures. The evidence for the use of the Tumilat route is circumstantial.
Some rulers fortified the approaches to the canal and thus to Egypt as a whole. The Wall of the Prince, a row of fortifications, stretched from the Bitter Lakes to the Pelusian Mouth of the Nile since the time of Senusret I (12th Dynasty). Ramses II (20th Dynasty) built Pithom and Per Ramses in the Delta.

Despite its strategic and economic value, the canal fell many times into disrepair and only far-sighted pharaohs of major means and power were capable of re-excavating and maintaining it. During the five hundred years following the 20th Dynasty, the canal disappeared under drifting sands.

Nile-Red Sea Canal In the Late Period another attempt at reconstructing the "Suez" canal was made by Necho (or Nekhau, ca.600 BCE), who must have been aware of the military and economic importance of a navigable link between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.

The key phrase might be " east through the depression of Wadi Tumilat into the area taken up nowadays by the Bitter Lakes and from there south to the Red Sea. " They may not have had to worry about the flow as the canal connected to the lakes - not the Red Sea directly.

[Digit]

Not so strange Min, I can open them, but I would be even older than I am now before I could read them!
Thanks for the reprint BTW.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

De nada, amigo.