taken from the book of facts by Reader's Digest
In order to boost trade between Egypt and the Persian gulf, Darius 1 ordered the construction of a canal linking the Nile and the red sea.
in fact, this predecessor of the Suez canal had been started in around 600 BC by the Egyptian pharaoh Necho, but it was abandoned when only half completed.
Darius's workers began completing the canal in about 500 BC and finished the job a few years later, setting up five inscribed stelae - stone slabs - of which four survived.
Darius's canal - which ran along a course similar to the modern Suez Canal, from the Nile Delta through the Britter lake to near the port of Suez - remained in more or less regular use until the 8th century AD.
Then part of it was blocked for military reasons - anticipating the similar closures of the Suez Canal in 1956 and by 12 centuries.
