The idea of a man-made waterway linking the Red Sea and the Mediterranean dates from the times of the pharaohs. But the first canal actually constructed was constructed in the 13th century BC on an east-west axis from the Nile River delta through the Wadi Tumilat to the Red Sea, probably at the decree of Ramses II, who ruled from 1279 BC to 1213 BC. The canal fell into disrepair and many efforts were made to restore it over the centuries. It was finally reopened by Darius I of Persia (522 BC-486 BC) after he conquered Egypt. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, it took four days to sail from end to end and was wide enough for two triremes to pass each other with oars extended. The canal was eventually abandoned in the 8th century AD by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur. In the centuries that followed there were several proposals to dig a canal across the Isthmus of Suez, but they came to nothing. After Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt in June 1798, seeking ultimately to seize India from the British, he inspected the remains of the ancient canal. Realizing the immense strategic value of a canal from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Suez, he ordered his chief engineer, J. L. Le Pere, to conduct a survey of the isthmus. Le Pere concluded - wrongly - that the level of the Red Sea was ten meters higher than the Mediterranean. But his calculations were not disproved until 1847. Napoleon’s conquest ran out of steam and he returned to France. The idea of a canal remained in limbo until 1854 when the French engineer Vicomte Ferdinand de Lesseps, an Arabist who was France’s vice consul in Cairo, convinced the Egyptian viceroy, Said Pasha, to back the project. The Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez was formed in 1858, with authority to construct the canal. Digging began on April 25, 1859. Over the next decade more than 100 million cubic feet of sand and rock were displaced. The canal was finally opened for navigation on November 17, 1869. araohs.”

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