Wadi Tumilat

... More >

and 16ft/5m deep. In later times the canal fell into disrepair, and the frequent incursions into the Wadi Tumilat by warlike nomadic tribes made it unsafe. In the seventh C. B.C. Necho set about improving it, but according to Herodotus (ii, 159) abandoned the idea because of an unfavorable prophecy.

A century later Darius I completed the work begun by Necho and set up stelae along its banks commemorating this achievement; one such stela can be seen in the Ismailia Museum. Later the canal was restored by Trajan and became known as "Trajan's River" (Amnis Traianus). It retained its importance into the period of the Caliphs, who used it for transporting grain from the Nile Valley to Medina. In the eighth C., however, the canal was filled in for reasons of security, and thereafter it fell into oblivion until its rediscovery in 1798.

Although the present canal is navigable, it serves mainly to provide water for irrigation. It branches off the Nile at Cairo, runs between the Arabian Plateau to the north and the Land of Goshen to the south, just beyond Abu Hammad cuts across the old freshwater canal coming from El-Zagazig and then continues east, parallel with this canal, along the Wadi Tumilat for rather more than 30mi/50km. At Nefisha a branch runs south to Suez, and at Moaskar-Ismailia another branch goes north to Port Said.