DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11715#0171
THE SUEZ CANAL.
signed to attain these three ends—to reclaim and fertilize a portion of the desert, to
facilitate the construction and maintenance of fortresses on the exposed frontier, and to
form a foss as a protection against Bedouin forays. The opening up of a waterway for
sea-going vessels was a subordinate purpose, which only took effect at a comparatively
recent period in the history. These facts being borne in mind, we shall be able the
more easily to understand what follows.
We read that the Israelites "built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses."
These were two of the fortresses to which reference has just been made. The former
of them is mentioned by Herodotus. The probable ruins of the latter were discovered
in 1883 with the statue and cartouche of the great monarch who founded it. The site
is covered deeply with desert sand; but traces of an ancient canal are distinctly visible,
which we may fairly conjecture to have been excavated by the labor of the Hebrew
slaves who built Raamses and Pithom for the kino-. Greek and Roman writers ascribe
ZAGAZIG, ON THE FRESH-WATER CANAL.
the construction of this canal to Rameses the Great, known to them at Sesostris.
This, it will be observed, affords an incidental corroboration to the statement of
Scripture ; for the city and the canal were doubtless the work of the same monarch who
gave his name to the outpost upon which the Hebrews were at work at the time of the
Exodus. Though the term " treasure city" conveys a false impression to our minds,
it is not therefore inaccurate. It was not a place in which the royal treasure was
deposited, but a fortified khan, where merchants could store their goods and transact
their business in safety.
The canal thus commenced, prior to the Exodus, was still further extended by Pharaoh
Necho, in the fifth or sixth century before the Christian era. He is the only Egyptian
monarch whose name appears in connection with maritime enterprise. In his zeal for
the promotion of navigation, he projected the formation of a ship canal connecting the
Nile with the Red Sea. Herodotus tells us that one hundred and fourteen miles of
167
signed to attain these three ends—to reclaim and fertilize a portion of the desert, to
facilitate the construction and maintenance of fortresses on the exposed frontier, and to
form a foss as a protection against Bedouin forays. The opening up of a waterway for
sea-going vessels was a subordinate purpose, which only took effect at a comparatively
recent period in the history. These facts being borne in mind, we shall be able the
more easily to understand what follows.
We read that the Israelites "built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses."
These were two of the fortresses to which reference has just been made. The former
of them is mentioned by Herodotus. The probable ruins of the latter were discovered
in 1883 with the statue and cartouche of the great monarch who founded it. The site
is covered deeply with desert sand; but traces of an ancient canal are distinctly visible,
which we may fairly conjecture to have been excavated by the labor of the Hebrew
slaves who built Raamses and Pithom for the kino-. Greek and Roman writers ascribe
ZAGAZIG, ON THE FRESH-WATER CANAL.
the construction of this canal to Rameses the Great, known to them at Sesostris.
This, it will be observed, affords an incidental corroboration to the statement of
Scripture ; for the city and the canal were doubtless the work of the same monarch who
gave his name to the outpost upon which the Hebrews were at work at the time of the
Exodus. Though the term " treasure city" conveys a false impression to our minds,
it is not therefore inaccurate. It was not a place in which the royal treasure was
deposited, but a fortified khan, where merchants could store their goods and transact
their business in safety.
The canal thus commenced, prior to the Exodus, was still further extended by Pharaoh
Necho, in the fifth or sixth century before the Christian era. He is the only Egyptian
monarch whose name appears in connection with maritime enterprise. In his zeal for
the promotion of navigation, he projected the formation of a ship canal connecting the
Nile with the Red Sea. Herodotus tells us that one hundred and fourteen miles of
167