As suggested by @metalinvader665 I created a thread explictly for this.

One of the peak moments (IMO) for Nubia was the 25th Dynasty and its brief rule over Egypt.

Ignoring the repercussions (or at least the non-immediate ones for now), what would it require for them (instead of building Nubian Pyramids), they decided to invest the time and energy to circumvent the various Cataracts around the Nubian Swell. Perhaps to justify it to themselves, it is to make transport between Nubia and Upper Egypt smoother - and make the Empire more secure as a result.

It has been mentioned before (including by @DominusNovus ) that the most practical canal (i.e. one that cuts across the longer stretches of river), requires locks and other complexities to raise and lower the water.

In contrast, I think that the best option (technologically, not in terms of ideal project), would be to run parallel to the river, entirely designed to circumvent those parts of the Cataracts that aren't navigable.

The problem with that is determining the exact distances involved, and whilst some Cataracts will be relatively short, and as such the length of the canal needed is shorter - I don't expect that to be universally the case.

Overall I guess I'm asking for information on the practicalities of such a project, working within the limitations of Nile Valley Stoneworking.

On top of that, which stretches do you circumvent first? The most upriver cataracts make travel in Nubia easier, all the way down to the Sudd (which has its own advantages), but the lowermost cataracts open up stretches of the Cataract Nile to the Egyptian Nile.

I am under no misunderstanding that it is a massive project. (I mean, it hasn't been attempted IOTL), but I want to at least discuss the practicalities, before starting a thread on the impacts (tempting it may be).
 
The construction would be taking place around the 8th century BC, during the 25th dynasty, correct?

That is the theory. I see no harm in the same dynasty before the conquest of Egypt started the project - but at the very least the project would start during their rule over Egypt.
 
Last edited:
As a Nubian dynasty ruling Egypt, I think you want to make communication between the two easier, so the lower ones make more sense.

but if the project is begun before conquering Egypt, it may be the upper ones.
 
This is really interesting. The only thing I could say, having no knowledge of the stoneworking methods available, is that canals would certainly help ease communication and transportation between Egypt and Nubia. We might even see Nubia hold Egypt for longer and have more diffusion of their cultures. And, if the pyramids could be built with even earlier technology, there is no doubt in my mind that a canal system for the Nubian cataracts would be attemptable by the ancients.
 
IRC from a documentary on the Aswan dam the cataracts are on solid bedrock and varies 15x annually in flow volume. The bedrock is laborious, slow and expensive as you are literally digging with slave flesh but doable with fire cracking and wet-wood expansion. The main problem is the flow, lots of silt with no easy cleanup methods and regular ebbs and floods. Short of building a raised canal like the Great Wall of China the maintenance of such a canal is ruinous.

Also I don't think they had locks yet, it'll just be draft animals/slaves tugging the boat which isn't feasible in much asides from calm waters.
 
Last edited:
IRC from a documentary on the Aswan dam the cataracts are on solid bedrock and varies 15x annually in flow volume. The bedrock is laborious, slow and expensive as you are literally digging with slave flesh but doable with fire cracking and wet-wood expansion. The main problem is the flow, lots of silt with no easy cleanup methods and regular ebbs and floods. Short of building a raised canal like the Great Wall of China the maintenance of such a canal is ruinous.

Also I don't think they had locks yet, it'll just be draft animals/slaves tugging the boat which isn't feasible in much asides from calm waters.

Well, necessity is the mother of invention! :p

Interestingly, I found out that the first canal suffered EXACTLY the issues you described in terms of maintenance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepi_I_Meryre

Which is at least a sign that this could very well be done - but it wouldn't be smooth sailing (forgive the pun).

This isn't to say that the 25th Dynasty couldn't improve on the 6th. Perhaps a system of weirs and primitive locks could be set up to manage water flow - or more drastically, a pair of canals built - allowing one to be sealed up and cleared at any one time whilst the other was in use. With the side effect of capturing a whole mess of silt to fertilize nearby farms. Interestingly, considering the pattern of farmers being labourers outside of the farming season, that could simply be how this canal network operates - dig the canals, clear the silt to provide quality farmland, and trade (substantially offsetting the maintenance costs). Fortify even part of the canals and you make it so that a force like the Assyrians can take the Egyptian Nile with standard difficulty, but have to fight protracted sieges to try and do any further south, with the Cataract Nile forming fortified waterway in all but name, where in the most dire circumstances the Pharaoh can wait, and unleash the full might of Nubia as soon as Assyria turns its back - which makes holding Egypt for the Assyrians and later the Persians absurdly difficult.

You do this for all six cataracts? Suddenly Egypt can import wood from past modern Khartoum - if any of it is good for building warships, Egypt/Nubia/Ta-Seti (whatever you wish to call it) could build a city that far south, substantially connecting Sub-Saharan Africa to Egypt and the Mediterranean - perhaps fulfilling the role of mercenaries in the same way the Nubians did for the Egyptian Pharaohs. South Sudanese from an ATL fighting alongside Nubians and Egyptians to conquer Cyprus, or fight the Hittites? Sounds interesting to me.

I might be on a bit of a pipedream here, but short of capturing the Canal-Forts, such a system would make Egypt incomprehensibly expensive to hold from outside the Nile on a long-term basis. Simply because of the threat from Nubia and beyond. You can't starve them out, you can easily invade that far south, and your enemy has substantially better logistics.

The more terrifying issue is that with that interconnectivity - there is now a greater sharing of diseases and plagues in both directions.
 
Top