Mahmoudia Canal ( ''Agathos Daimon'' or ''Megas potamos'') is a sub-canal from the

Nile River The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest rive ...

which starts at the Nile-port of Mahmoudia and goes through

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...

to the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

. It was built to supply Alexandria with food and fresh water from the Nile.

History

Prior to 1817

The first freshwater canal from the Nile to Alexandria was built under the rule of the

Ptolemy I Ptolemy I Soter (; gr, Πτολεμαῖος Σωτήρ, ''Ptolemaîos Sōtḗr'' "Ptolemy the Savior"; c. 367 BC – January 282 BC) was a Macedonian Greek general, historian and companion of Alexander the Great from the Kingdom of Macedo ...

Ibn Batuta Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battutah (, ; 24 February 13041368/1369),; fully: ; Arabic: commonly known as Ibn Battuta, was a Berber Maghrebi scholar and explorer who travelled extensively in the lands of Afro-Eurasia, largely in the Muslim wor ...

(1304–1369), the Moroccan traveller, in his " Rihla: My Travels", discusses passing through

in 1326 and references a canal from

to The Nile that was finished a few years before his arrival. This might contradict with Wali Muhammad Ali building it almost four centuries later. However, regarding the geographic location and the fact that this part of the land, which has been reclaimed not a long time ago, was plain desert then, the canal might have been covered in sand sometime before it was re-established, not necessarily following the same route, by Muhammed Ali of Egypt.

The digging process

On 8 May 1817, Viceroy Mohamed Ali ordered to dig a canal from the

close to Alatf village to deliver the water of the Nile to

through

Beheira Beheira Governorate ( ar, محافظة البحيرة ', , "the governorate of the Lake") is a coastal governorate in Egypt. Located in the northern part of the country in the Nile Delta, its capital is Damanhur. Overview Beheira Governorate en ...

and to be a path for cargo ships. He ordered to group workers and tools necessary to start the digging work. During the digging process, some old houses covered in sand were found which had ancient boxes inside; some of them were opened and some others were sent to Mohamed Ali without their content being known. In April 1819 the work stopped due to plague. In January 1820, the canal was completed and named after

Sultan Mahmud II Mahmud II ( ota, محمود ثانى, Maḥmûd-u s̠ânî, tr, II. Mahmud; 20 July 1785 – 1 July 1839) was the 30th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. His reign is recognized for the extensive administrative, ...

, the

Sultan Sultan (; ar, سلطان ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it c ...

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_in ...

, as

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

then was an Ottoman province.

After 1820

Within twenty years after the canal was dug, it filled with sand and became almost impassable, and it was only after Muhammad Sa'id Pasha came to power that it was cleansed and made navigable again. Mahmoudieh Canal, Near Alexandria

A contract between the

Prussian Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

Baron de Pentz and the Pasha to use the canal for the provisioning of Alexandria in the first half of the nineteenth century came to an end due to a disagreement over the hoisting of a Prussian flag.

William Harrison Ainsworth William Harrison Ainsworth (4 February 18053 January 1882) was an English historical novelist born at King Street in Manchester. He trained as a lawyer, but the legal profession held no attraction for him. While completing his legal studies in ...

, ''

The New Monthly Magazine ''The New Monthly Magazine'' was a British monthly magazine published from 1814 to 1884. It was founded by Henry Colburn and published by him through to 1845. History Colburn and Frederic Shoberl established ''The New Monthly Magazine and Univer ...

'', London: Chapman and Hall, 1853, pp. 3-

/ref> In the 1850s, a new steam-tug company was formed with approval from the pasha to use the canal. Its board of directors included Jules Pastré, Alexander G. Cassavetti, Ange Adolphe Levi, Alexander Tod, and Moise Valensin. The pasha ordered the new company to replace the old locks with newer, bigger gates and to provide for the cleansing and upkeep of the canal.

Map from the time of construction

In the French ''Carte Topographique de l'Egypte'',Nile delta in early 19th century, compilation of 18 from the 45 leaves of Carte topographique de l'Egypte (French), 1818
/ref> investigated while the canal was built, and published in 1818, the canal is called Canal of Alexandria (الإسكندرية ﺧﻠﻴﺞ — Khalīg al-Iskandariyya). In that map the bifurcation from the Nile is 20 upstream of the modern bifurcation and yet there are no totally straight sections.

References