Qualla: Canal of the Pharaohs https://qualla.com/canal-of-the-pharaohs en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:30 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/t/q/t/canal-of-the-pharaohs-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Canal of the Pharaohs https://qualla.com/canal-of-the-pharaohs Canal of the Pharaohs: Introduction https://qualla.com/canal-of-the-pharaohs/ Photo credit derivative work: RedTony derivative work: JMCC1, CC BY-SA 4.0. The idea of connecting the Mediterranean world to the Red Sea did not begin with Ferdinand de Lesseps. It may have begun with Pharaoh Senusret III around 1850 BC -- nearly four millennia before the modern Suez Canal opened in 1869. The ancient waterway followed a completely different route from its modern successor: instead of cutting straight south through the Isthmus of Suez, it ran east from the Nile through the Wadi Tumilat valley to reach the Red Sea. Aristotle wrote about it. Herodotus described it. Pliny the Elder measured it. Darius the Great of Persia carved inscriptions boasting that he completed it. And yet, for all the empires that built, rebuilt, silted over, and re-excavated this canal across nearly three thousand years, it was finally sealed shut in 767 AD for the most prosaic of reasons -- a caliph wanted to cut off supplies to rebels.

Read more: Canal of the Pharaohs on Qualla

Image: derivative work: RedTony derivative work: JMCC1 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/t/q/t/canal-of-the-pharaohs-wp/stqt-canal-of-the-pharaohs-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Canal of the Pharaohs: The Problem That Haunted Every Empire https://qualla.com/canal-of-the-pharaohs/ Photo credit Richard Mortel from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, CC BY 2.0. The fundamental engineering challenge was always the same: the Red Sea appeared to sit higher than the Nile, threatening to flood Egypt's freshwater with salt. Aristotle recorded that Sesostris (likely Senusret III) had started digging a canal but abandoned the work for this reas...

Read more: Canal of the Pharaohs on Qualla

Image: Richard Mortel from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/t/q/t/canal-of-the-pharaohs-wp/stqt-canal-of-the-pharaohs-the-problem-that-haunted-every-empire.mp3 0:06 2 full Canal of the Pharaohs: Roman Walls, Arab Reopenings https://qualla.com/canal-of-the-pharaohs/ Photo credit no idea - see source, Public domain. Each new empire that controlled Egypt rebuilt the canal to suit its own needs. Roman Emperor Trajan moved the canal's mouth on the Nile further south, to what is now Old Cairo, and renamed the waterway Amnis Traianus after himself. The entrance walls he built -- six meters thick ...

Read more: Canal of the Pharaohs on Qualla

Image: no idea - see source | Public domain

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/t/q/t/canal-of-the-pharaohs-wp/stqt-canal-of-the-pharaohs-roman-walls-arab-reopenings.mp3 0:06 3 full Canal of the Pharaohs: A Thousand Years of Alternatives https://qualla.com/canal-of-the-pharaohs/ Photo credit Dominique Adolphe Grenet de Joigny, Public domain. After the canal's closure, trade between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean shifted to overland camel caravans running from Alexandria to Red Sea ports, or the Byzantine silk route through the Caucasus Mountains. When Portugal's Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope i...

Read more: Canal of the Pharaohs on Qualla

Image: Dominique Adolphe Grenet de Joigny | Public domain

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/t/q/t/canal-of-the-pharaohs-wp/stqt-canal-of-the-pharaohs-a-thousand-years-of-alternatives.mp3 0:06 4 full Canal of the Pharaohs: The Ghost Beneath the Modern Canal https://qualla.com/canal-of-the-pharaohs/ Photo credit Richard Mortel from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, CC BY 2.0. After more than a millennium of silence, the connection between Mediterranean and Red Sea was finally reestablished -- but along a different path. Ferdinand de Lesseps's Suez Canal, which opened on 17 November 1869, cut directly south through the isthmus rather than following the...

Read more: Canal of the Pharaohs on Qualla

Image: Richard Mortel from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/t/q/t/canal-of-the-pharaohs-wp/stqt-canal-of-the-pharaohs-the-ghost-beneath-the-modern-canal.mp3 0:06 5 full