Archaeologica.org

I know there has been a lot of disbelief that ship loads of goods could have made the trip between the Indian Ocean (even China) and the Mediterranean.

So I made it a little bit of a research project.
It turns out that it has been very possible, on and off, for centuries.

It is even the reason, in some minds, for the success of Alexandria as a city..

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/a ... 80/4081/59

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2009AM/finalp ... 162686.htm

http://www.magdytorab.com/english/Paleo.htm

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2009AM/finalp ... 161014.htm

http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/geo ... index.html

http://www.specialtyinterests.net/map_nile_delta.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi-Ramesses

http://www.worldwildlife.org/wildworld/ ... _full.html

http://www.eternalegypt.org/EternalEgyp ... ule_id=193

http://www.jrank.org/history/pages/3853/canals.html

There are many more sites.
Follow the threads.
Some of them start to get a bit Biblical so I have skipped them.
I, personally, do not mind them, I consider the Bible a Theological work, not a geographical one.
But it is nice to know it agrees with “real world, hard science.”

I never realized that it was that much in doubt. Ruins of Egyptian, Greek and Roman ports on the Red Sea confirm trade with Arabia and India. Whether the Egyptian/Greek/Roman ships sailed all the way to India is open to question and probably had different answers at different times but I have no doubt that the Arabians/Persians were delighted to serve as middle men for ships coasting along the route.

kbs2244 wrote:I know there has been a lot of disbelief that ship loads of goods could have made the trip between the Indian Ocean (even China) and the Mediterranean.

If those 'goods' were deemed worth it, no destination was impossible.
Drugs, a.k.a. 'spices', were deemed worth it, more valuable than gold, and were consequently globally traded on a regular basis from at least the second millennium BC onwards.

Min:
All the stories I have read about Red Sea Egyptian ports call them transfer points for the goods to be portaged over to the Nile.
This route seems to forgotten.

Gavin Menzies book 1434 was the first place I head of a continuous water route.
It was the way the Chinese junks got to Florence.

But it came and went.

Menzies' lack of evidence is legendary.

BTW, I've been to Florence. It is not a port city.





Unless those Chinese junks had duplex drive I don't think they got there.

Minimalist wrote:Menzies' lack of evidence is legendary.

BTW, I've been to Florence. It is not a port city.

Neither were Rome or Athens. That didn't stop them. So they built Piraeus and Ostia. Problem solved.
Was there maybe a canal to Firenze at one time? The elevation difference wasn't a major hurdle.

Yes but Menzies did not say that Chinese ships reached them....


Or did he?

Actually Menzies says it was a “delegation” that went to Florence to be greeted by Pope Eugenius IV. He was what passed as a "central ruler" in those days of city states.

The ships went to Venice after stopping at Hvar on the Adriatic coast.
He expects it was as much for repair at the Venice shipyards as it was for trade.
It took them about 3 years to get half way around the world.
And the ships were a bit tired.

1434 is a good read.
He lists a pretty good chain of evidence.
If his theory is true, it sure pops the Eurocentric pride in the Renaissance.
He is really swiming againt the current in that area.

http://www.1421exposed.com/html/suez_canal.html

The Suez Canal and the Passage of Zheng He’s fleet on its way to Italy in 1434

Dr. Stephen Davies, Museum Director, Hong Kong Maritime Museum

Almost all scholars – except Mr Menzies and his team – agree that there was no connection between the Red and Mediterranean Seas in the 15th century. Remnants of a connection that may have been open in the early 12th century remained. But even that connection was shallow and relatively narrow. For even supposing it to have maintained the width of the 6th century BCE canal of Darius (sufficient for two triremes to row past each other), that would not entail a width of greater than 100’. One can see that from the dimensions of the reconstruction trireme, the Olympias, as recounted in J. S. Morrison, J. F. Coates, N. B. Rankov, The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship, 2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p.270 . Each trireme with oars extended would have taken up about 12m of width. Two passing, allowing a close but generous shave, would have taken up 30m or 100’. That’s 50’ narrower than the 1869 Suez Canal and 80’ narrower than the beam of Zheng He’s treasure ships as propounded by Mr Menzies.

That is an interesting site.
I didn’t know about it and will have to spend some time there.

The thing that jumps out at me though is that he is comparing a Nile River branch with a straight line dug ditch.
It is an apples and oranges thing.

If done correctly, by utilizing the river currents and wing dams as on the Mississippi, I would think you could design a self dredging canal that would work until something would block the current at the upstream end.

BTW,
I am not defending Menzies.
I feel he could just as easy be wrong as right.
But I do have a soft spot for someone that can make a good, well documented, argument against the “accepted knowledge.”

Yep! It's very narrowness would tend to make it self dredging, some dredging would likely be needed where the canal ended, as it would drop its load of sediment there of course.

Roy.

Yes,
“But on the other hand.”

The wing dams on the Mississippi (I like typing that word) work because they are channeling the main flow of the river.
That averages 7 MPH between the dams.
(It slows down as the river enters the “pools” above the dams.)
The last dam is at St Louis, above the merging with the Ohio River.
The river “runs free” below St Louis.

That 7 MPH speed is also the announced current on tour boats in New Orleans.
That city is above the delta.

I have no idea what the water speed would be on a off shoot branch of the river as it enters it’s delta.
I would expect, be it Mississippi or Nile, it would slow down.
So, it would take some engineering to keep a flow going and a canal open.
The infamous “levees” of New Orleans serve this purpose as well as keeping a city that is below river level dry.

Looking at the history of the area of the Nile, the word “geopolitics” come to mind.

Without going into the details as I don't know enough about the actual design/construction of the set up kb I can assure you that, if the flow rate was high enough, any such canal would keep its bed clean, after all, that is what a river does.

Roy.

Digit wrote:I can assure you that, if the flow rate was high enough, any such canal would keep its bed clean, after all, that is what a river does.

Bollocks! No untouched river's bed/track stays the same. Ever! Rivers meander forever. With ever wider and wider amplitudes, and then cut off the meander. Deltas/Estuaries are much more dynamic still. Their topography changes considerably, every year. Every tide!
Even if they had total control of the amount of water going in at one end (something we can't even do today) of that canal, the water would hit varying obstacles on its way to the other side. Like harder and softer rock formations with different rates of erosion. Or low-lying plains forming shallow overflows/lakes. With all sorts of consequences for the 'speed of the water'. Which will be different wherever you measure it. And will be different again in two weeks time!
The long and short of it is that all canals require permanent dredging and waterworks or they'll become totally unusable within a decade.

And then there is the small matter of the Red Sea being salt seawater, while the Nile is fresh water. At some point along that canal the two would have to be separated, while at the same time letting your boats through. To achieve that you need to build a sea lock system. Something that even today only a dozen out of 220 countries are capable of.
I live not far from such a sea lock system, and passed through it a hundred times on boats and ships. They are the heaviest constructions imaginable. Easily on a par with the Great Pyramids in that respect. Only less obvious than the Great Pyramids because 7/8ths of lock systems are by neccessity under water of course. But I can promise you that our progeny, 3/4/5 millennia from now, will easily recognise their ruins for what they once were unless we destroyed them intentionally with the help of the Loiseaux company. A scenario that, some say, the US administration seems to have been practicing on 9/11.

So where are the sea locks in that Nile–Red Sea canal?

Probably more than any one wants to know about Ancient Egyptian canals.


http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/tim ... canals.htm



They were aware of the need to keep dredging canals.