Ramses the Great's Canal: The Nile-Red Sea Waterway

Ramses the Great: Egypt's Most Powerful Pharaoh — Fexingo History · Jul 24, 2026 · 5m · transcript

Before the Suez Canal, before Darius, there was Ramses the Great's canal — an ancient waterway linking the Nile to the Red Sea. This episode traces the engineering, logistics, and geopolitics behind this forgotten megaproject. We follow the canal's route from the Pelusiac branch of the Nile near Per-Ramesses, through the Wadi Tumilat, to the Bitter Lakes and the Gulf of Suez. We discuss the corvée labour system that built it, the ships that sailed it (Byblos-runner types and Punt-venturing vessels), and the stelae Ramses erected to commemorate his achievement, including the one…