The ancient Canal of the Pharaohs dated back to the early Egyptian kingdoms period, was improved significantly by Rameses the Great (Rameses II), was uninterned by Cyrus the Great of Persia when sands swaollowed up a great part of it, and was maintained and improved during Roman times. Eventually it was again swallowed by the desert sands during the Early Middle Ages but it had been an important trading asset for nearly two thousand years, up into the early Islamic period. Thereafter, the land routes to transship camel caravans' goods from Alexandria to ports on the Red Sea or the northern Byzantine silk route through the Caucasian Mountains transhipping on the Caspian Sea and thence to India. Ramesses II, Abu Simbel Ramesses II (also known as Ramesses the Great and alternatively transcribed as Ramses and Rameses) was an Egyptian pharaoh. ... Cyrus the Great (Old Persian: KuruÅ¡,[1] modern Persian: کوروش, Kourosh; ca. ... For other uses of this term see: Persia (disambiguation) The Persian Empire is the name used to refer to a number of historic dynasties that have ruled the country of Persia (Iran). ... Justinians wife Theodora and her retinue, in a 6th century mosaic from the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. ... Byzantium, present day Istanbul, was an ancient Greek city-state, which according to legend was founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas or Byzantas (Βύζας or Βύζαντας in Greek). ... The Silk Road  â€“ Georgian: აბრეშუმის დიდი გზა; Traditional Chinese: ; Simplified Chinese: , pinyin: sÄ«chóu zhÄ« lù; Persian: ‎; Râh-e Abrisham; Turkish: ; Kyrgyz: (Äžibek ÄŸolu); Kazakh: ; Hungarian: ; Polish: ; Russian: (VÄ›lkij Å jolkovyj Put ) â€“ or Silk Route is an interconnected series of routes through Southern Asia traversed by caravan and ocean vessel, and... The Caspian Sea is the largest lake on Earth by both area and volume,[1] with a surface area of 371,000 square kilometres (143,244 mi²) and a volume of 78,200 cubic kilometres (18,761 mi³).[2] It is a landlocked endorheic body of water and lies between...

The earliest canal apparently cut across to the Nile from the Suez lakes from circa or antedating 1500 BC. The Nile (Arabic: ‎, translit: , Ancient Egyptian iteru) is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the longest river on Earth, though some sources claim the Amazon in South America is longer. ... SUEZ (Euronext: SZE, NYSE: SZE) is a leading French-based multinational corporation, with operations primarily in water, electricity and natural gas supply, and waste management. ...