Alternatives to the Suez canal

Egypt has always been hard to control for any outside power, right from the days of the Assyrians and the Persians, down to the days of the Ottomans. If anyone decided to make eastern trade completely seaborne and independent of the Egyptians, what route would they go? In other words, what are the alternatives to the to the Suez Canal? Apart from the Pharaonic Canal, which connected the Red Sea to the Nile, I mean. Could a channel be cut from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Mediterranean? Or much more ambitious, could a channel be dug from the Euphrates to the Orontes? If any of the two are possible, what is the earliest date when would it be technologically possible?
 
The Israelis have wanted to build a canal from either Haifa or Ashkelon to Eilat for the longest time now. So yes, going to the Gulf of Aqaba through the Negev is believed to be viable.

Edit: As for feasability - the Panama Canal is 48 miles long. A Haifa-to-Eilat canal would be about 225 - and there are no lakes to go through. So I would guess that you don't have a likelihood of it happening until, say, the 1920s or 1930s - and you'd need a situation where the Suez Canal's approximate route is a border. That route is just more viable due to all the lakes, so you'd have to split it between two opposed countries to keep the canal from being built there.
 
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Edit: As for feasability - the Panama Canal is 48 miles long. A Haifa-to-Eilat canal would be about 225 - and there are no lakes to go through. So I would guess that you don't have a likelihood of it happening until, say, the 1920s or 1930s - and you'd need a situation where the Suez Canal's approximate route is a border. That route is just more viable due to all the lakes, so you'd have to split it between two opposed countries to keep the canal from being built there.

Haifa to Eilat would be unnecessary. However, a canal from Eilat to Gaza or Ashdod might be more feasible - it would be much shorter than a Eilat to Haifa canal. Even so, I agree with you that that canal is unlikely before 1900.
 
Haifa to Eilat would be unnecessary. However, a canal from Eilat to Gaza or Ashdod might be more feasible - it would be much shorter than a Eilat to Haifa canal. Even so, I agree with you that that canal is unlikely before 1900.

Yeah, Haifa-Eilat isn't the best way to go about it, but even Ashdod is 153 miles, and Gaza is 137. That's far better, but the point is that any such canal is going to be contending against a decent quantity of the completely dry Negev. And pretty much every long canal anywere else is going to involve lakes. Maybe the Grand Canal in China has similar-length stretches without lakes present, but that took centuries to complete and required extensive maintenance even when it was in the middle of a well-governed country with unmatched manpower and resources.

As I mentioned, any alternative to the Suez Canal would have to be on the border of a country. This was the case with the Ottoman Empire of about the time period we're discussing, but I think everyone can agree there was no way the Ottomans at this point could have carried out this sort of project. Plus you'd have to butterfly away the Suez Canal.

In short, I just don't see any alternative to the Suez Canal being feasible without massive butterflies. The Suez Canal's location is just that optimal.
 
I think what is needed is a Geological POD.

Rift Faults radiate in threes, from the Central Focus. One of the three being dormant, and the other two active. However these can and do shift over time.
http://www.wadiarabahproject.man.ac.uk/menu/Geology/plates.htm

So if some time around 100,000 BP the Dead Sea Rift becomes Active, with either the Red Sea, or Great Rift Valley, Rifts going Dormant.
[some slight & controversial evidence that it is the Great Rift that is going dormant, while the Dead Sea Rift is becoming more active over the last several centuries.]
By the time Egypt rises 4~5,000 BP, the Gulf of Aqaba reaches the Med, some where around the north border of Lebanon.
 
I think what is needed is a Geological POD.

Rift Faults radiate in threes, from the Central Focus. One of the three being dormant, and the other two active. However these can and do shift over time.
http://www.wadiarabahproject.man.ac.uk/menu/Geology/plates.htm

So if some time around 100,000 BP the Dead Sea Rift becomes Active, with either the Red Sea, or Great Rift Valley, Rifts going Dormant.
[some slight & controversial evidence that it is the Great Rift that is going dormant, while the Dead Sea Rift is becoming more active over the last several centuries.]
By the time Egypt rises 4~5,000 BP, the Gulf of Aqaba reaches the Med, some where around the north border of Lebanon.

Ehh - I would rather not venture there. But is it possible technically to connect the Euphrates and the Orontes, which are not more than 70kms at their nearest point? And if it is done, would it be a feasible naval trade route?
 
By the time Egypt rises 4~5,000 BP, the Gulf of Aqaba reaches the Med, some where around the north border of Lebanon.

(With the usual butterly net caveats of geological POD's) would this not delay the rise of Egypt? Perhaps it would stimulate an earlier maritime trade system. And instead of Semitic-related to the peoples of Syria, Iraq and Arabia-the population of Palestine might be offshoots of Egyptians.
 
Ehh - I would rather not venture there. But is it possible technically to connect the Euphrates and the Orontes, which are not more than 70kms at their nearest point? And if it is done, would it be a feasible naval trade route?
but that would, at best, give you a barge canal (which is useful), not a ship canal (which is priceless). Compare the Erie Canal (almost unused commercially today) as a formerly vital barge canal vs the St. Lawrence Seaway (ship canal).
 

mowque

Banned
but that would, at best, give you a barge canal (which is useful), not a ship canal (which is priceless). Compare the Erie Canal (almost unused commercially today) as a formerly vital barge canal vs the St. Lawrence Seaway (ship canal).

Speaking of the old Erie. I found this interesting-
There were some 42 commercial shipments on the canal in 2008, compared to 15 such shipments in 2007 and more than 33,000 shipments in 1855, the canal's peak year. According to the New York Times, the new growth in commercial traffic is due to the rising cost of diesel fuel. Canal barges can carry a short ton of cargo 514 miles on one gallon of diesel fuel, while a gallon allows a train to haul the same amount of cargo 202 miles and a truck 59 miles. Canal barges can carry loads up to 3,000 short tons and are used to transport objects that would be too large for road or rail shipment
 
but that would, at best, give you a barge canal (which is useful), not a ship canal (which is priceless). Compare the Erie Canal (almost unused commercially today) as a formerly vital barge canal vs the St. Lawrence Seaway (ship canal).

Aye, that is true. The Euphrates was navigable up to Ramadi or just further north to large vessels in 1900 (large vessels of that time). Apparently, there are shoals and rapids just above Hit.

There was an Ottoman proposal bypass the Hit rapids, deepen the Euphrates channel up to Zeugma, and build a rail link between Zeugma and Antioch, and develop Antioch into a large harbour. All this was supposed to be with German assistance. They wanted this as a competition to the Suez canal which was in the hands of the British and the French. Nothing came of it, though. After the World war I, the British and the French who controlled the area had no interest in the project.

To connect the Euphrates and the Orontes would be a huge undertaking. I cannot really see it accomplished before 1800s, at least. The Chinese Grand canal seems to be a real exception to the long, difficult canals list.
 
The Israelis have wanted to build a canal from either Haifa or Ashkelon to Eilat for the longest time now. So yes, going to the Gulf of Aqaba through the Negev is believed to be viable.

Edit: As for feasability - the Panama Canal is 48 miles long. A Haifa-to-Eilat canal would be about 225 - and there are no lakes to go through. So I would guess that you don't have a likelihood of it happening until, say, the 1920s or 1930s - and you'd need a situation where the Suez Canal's approximate route is a border. That route is just more viable due to all the lakes, so you'd have to split it between two opposed countries to keep the canal from being built there.

Better yet use ancient Chinese building techniques, you know they built a huge 3000 mile canal on various terrain about 2000 years ago. I think it was under the suei or the Qin not too sure:)
 
Better yet use ancient Chinese building techniques, you know they built a huge 3000 mile canal on various terrain about 2000 years ago. I think it was under the suei or the Qin not too sure:)

Mentioned it in my later post. They too had lakes to go through. Furthermore, the Grand Canal linked the most important cities in a stable empire with massive resources and manpower for the construction effort. Even then it required extensive and nearly constant upkeep. Every breakdown in government led to the canal falling into disrepair and needing extensive renovation by the government that followed.

Whoever is building this theoretical canal will be doing so on the periphery of a country and will have to exist in such a situation that the Suez Canal is butterflied away. Ideally whoever is backing this effort will need to have global interests. It would take something like a stronger Egyptian resistance to British suzerainty, allied with an earlier and more extensive German interest in colonization and backing of the Ottoman Empire. Even then the initial efforts will be desultory until better canal-cutting technology is developed - you just don't have the manpower to dig the canal by hand as the Suez Canal was, and no way to sustain a large population of immigrant laborers. You need lots and lots of explosives.

How about a canal from the Med to the Sea of Galilee and/or the river Jordan.

The Jordan isn't really navigable for ships of the size that would make it worthwhile. You'd want to go from Ashkelon or Haifa to the Dead Sea, which is another thing the Israelis have been keen on for decades. But then you still have to go south to Aqaba through the exact same desert we've been talking about. It's a viable alternative, but more expensive.
 
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The Jordan isn't really navigable for ships of the size that would make it worthwhile. You'd want to go from Ashkelon or Haifa to the Dead Sea, which is another thing the Israelis have been keen on for decades. But then you still have to go south to Aqaba through the exact same desert we've been talking about. It's a viable alternative, but more expensive.

Not to mention the really big altitude difference, necessitating a lot of locks-very expensive.
 
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