There are theories that said that they did build a canal from the Red Sea to help build the Great Pyramids. There was also a large river port close to the Pyramids.
I still think the late Robert Perkins’ what if Egypt survived to the present day still hold up today. If the Egyptians were to focus inward and expand into south Eastern Africa, due to their uncomfortability with Naval power, it might give them the resources to beat back the Persians, Greeks and later Romans. I would love to see a tl that went into further detail about how ardorus southern expansion would be, since Robert’s tl did get a bit “space filling empiry” at parts 😅
The reality is that by that point in time, most of the world already had domesticated camels and horses. Egypt had lasted for so long because it was protected by the desert barriers, but otherwise it's relatively flat so it was easy to be invaded. That's why Egypt is a military state today. The military is in charge of everything in Egyptian society so that it can maintain it's independence.
@@slossbossabsolutely especially that we're in one of the most instable regions of planet earth although we re now trying to sell military owned businesses to investors so we can help the private sector grow exponentially and refocus the military funds on the building of new cities and mega projects and ofcourse military industries
But they did, it was a series of small locks and lakes in north eastern Egypt, both near and the inspiration for the modern Suez. It was even rebuilt by the Persians and Greeks. Thing was with tech at the time only small ships and portage stops could get through. And there were maintained roads to major ports on the east coast. We know that the Ptolemies and Romans used Egypt to trade a far afield as India for sure, even Vietnam and Southern China if the coins and such were direct and not via middlemen. And theres evidence of ancient Egyptian materials reaching near to india too and indian and central asian materials making their way to Egypt. Its super fascinating that irl a minor version of the scenario seemed to have played out on a trade scale rather than conquest
Not only did they do it, they did it several times. Dig canal, awesome. Eventually it falls to disrepair and fills in with dirt and sand. Centuries later someone digs it back out again.
Long ago I wrote althist about pharaoh building hydro engineering vanity projects including channel from Mediterranean sea to Qattara depression, that caused evaporation and rain over coastal libya and wall of humid air blocking humidity from Nile from escaping making Nile Delta wetter. All of eastern sahara and big chunk of Levant and Arabia gained humidity which in turn causes them to be more docile and never cause rise of Islam.
Magna Graecia would still exist and Rome was doing things prior to the initial Persian invasion of Greece, so I doubt Rome would prefer the influence of Persians. Though it may be much more Persian influence than OTL. Keep in mind that Herodotos himself was literally born within the nominal boundaries of the Persian Empire but still severely botched tellings of various cultural practices and histories as it relates to Persia. That's with a queen of his city-state having been a great admiral in the Persian navy during the battles of Artemisium and Salamis. The periphery of western Anatolia and further beyond just weren't heavily impacted by Iranian culture. And it's worth noting that the Athenians did give Persia the offering of land and water (which to the Persians was seen as a sign of submission) initially and much later that among other things The King's Peace gave the Persians a right to exercise their monopoly on violence to enforce the political order in Greece, so the poleis being 100% totally untethered from Persia doesn't really accurately reflect OTL either. Seeing how troublesome Egypt was for Persia OTL with the constant rebellion and temporary periods of independence I don't know that a much more economically prominent Egypt would be enough to dissuade Persia from attacking. Honestly that might be a good selling point for even more pressure.
I thought about that a few days ago. We know Kishon River goes from Arabia up to Arrat monut range. Could it be that the Pishon is actually the Nile river connecting to the Jordan river goes the same way to Ararat? If you look at the nile north stream it is man made, the suez canal exsits only couple hundreds years (200 I think) and there are (due to suez canal blocking the nile) dry streams in what the romans called sinay peninsula goes up to jordan river and than arrarat range
