SUEZ CANAL, an artificial waterway, about loom. long, connecting Port Said, on the Mediterranean sea, and Suez, on the Red sea, which enables ocean-going ships to traverse the isthmus between Asia and Africa, thereby shortening the maritime route from Europe to the Orient by the sailing distance around the continent of Africa. At various eras such communication existed by way of the Nile. The fertile Wadi Tumilat extending east of the Nile valley almost to the head of the gulf (which in ancient times reached north to the Bitter lakes) afforded an easy road between the Nile and the Red sea. Aristotle, Strabo and Pliny attribute to the legendary Sesostris (q.v.) the distinction of being the first of the pharaohs to build such a canal. From an inscrip tion at Karnak it seems that the canal existed in the time of Seti I. (1380 B.c.). The channel of this canal is still traceable in parts of the Wadi Tumilat, and its direction was frequently followed by the engineers of the fresh-water canal. Pharaoh Necho (609 B.c.) 'began to build another canal, but it was not completed—according to Herodotus 120,000 men perished in the undertaking. Darius (520 B.c.) continued the work of Necho, rendering navigable the channel of the Heroopolite gulf, which had become blocked. Up to this time there appears to have been no connection between the waters of the Red sea and those of the Bubastis-Heroopolis canal; vessels coming from the Mediter ranean ascended the Pelusiac arm of the Nile to Bubastis and then sailed along the canal to Heroopolis, where their merchan dise had to be transferred to the Red sea ships. Ptolemy Phila delphus (285 B.c.) connected the canal with the waters of the sea, and at the spot where the junction was effected he built the town of Arsinoe. The dwindling of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile rendered this means of communication impossible by the time of Cleopatra (31 B.c.). Trajan (A.D. 98) is said to have repaired the canal, and, as the Pelusiac branch was no longer available for navigation, to have built a new canal between Bubastis and Babylon (Old Cairo), this new canal being known traditionally as Amnis Trajanus or Amnis Augustus. Accord ing to H. R. Hall, however, "It is very doubtful if any work of this kind, beyond repairs, was undertaken in the times of the Romans ; and it is more probable that the new canal was the work of `Amr" (the Arab conqueror of Egypt in the 7th century).
The canal was certainly in use in the early years of the Muslim rule in Egypt ; it is said to have been closed c. A.D. 77o by order of Abu Ja`far (Mansur), the second Abbasid caliph and founder of Baghdad, who wished to prevent supplies from reaching his ene mies in Arabia by this means. `Amr's canal (of which the Khalig which passed through Cairo and was closed in 1897 is said to have formed part) had its terminus on the Red sea south of the Heroopolite gulf near the present town of Suez. It is not cer tain that it was ever restored, although it is asserted that in the year I 000 Sultan Hakim rendered it navigable. If so it must speedily have become choked up again. Parts of the canal con tinued to be filled during the Nile inundations until Mohammed Ali (A.D. 181 I ) ordered it to be Tlosed ; the closing, however, was not completely effected, for in 1861 the old canal from Bubastis still flowed as far as Kassassin. This part of the canal, after over 2500 years of service, was utilized by the French engineers in building the fresh-water canal from Cairo to Suez in 1861-63. This canal follows the lines of that of eAmr (or Trajan).