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

Nile River The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the longest river i ...

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

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

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 east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

. 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

Ptolemy I Ptolemy I Soter (; , ''Ptolemaîos Sōtḗr'', "Ptolemy the Savior"; 367 BC – January 282 BC) was a Macedonian Greek general, historian, and successor of Alexander the Great who went on to found the Ptolemaic Kingdom centered on Egypt. Pt ...

Ibn Batuta Ibn Battuta (; 24 February 13041368/1369), was a Maghrebis, Maghrebi traveller, explorer and scholar. Over a period of 30 years from 1325 to 1354, he visited much of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Iberian Peninsula. Near the end of his ...

(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 a canal to be dug from the

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

through Beheira 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, the

Sultan Sultan (; ', ) 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 came to be use ...

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

, as

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

was an Ottoman province at that time.

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 cleared and made navigable again. A contract between the Prussian 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'', 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 cleaning and upkeep of the canal.

Map from the time of construction

In the French ''Carte Topographique de l'Egypte'', 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.

Crime in the Mahmudiyya

Due to its vastness and proximity to the city center of Alexandria, the Mahmudiyya Canal became a popular place for murderers to dispose of bodies. In 1904, it was reported in the Egyptian Gazette that an Egyptian woman had been brutally murdered by a butcher and shoemaker, who disposed of her body in the canal. Two years later in 1906, it was reported that the remains of a young Egyptian girl were discovered in a large canvas bag, by a fisherman, along the canal.

References

{{coord missing, Egypt Canals in Egypt Canals opened in 1820