Napoleon Bonaparte's interest in finding the remnants of an ancient waterway passage culminated in a cadre of archaeologists, scientists, cartographers and engineers scouring the area beginning in the latter months of 1798. Their findings, recorded in the Description de l'Égypte, include detailed maps that depict the discovery of an ancient canal extending northward from the Red Sea and then westward toward the Nile.

Later, in the second half of the 19th century, French cartographers would again record the discovery of the remnants of yet another ancient north-south canal running past the east side of Lake Timsah and ending near the north end of the Great Bitter Lake.This second canal may have followed a course along the ancient shoreline of the Red Sea when the Red Sea once extended north to Lake Timsah. Unknown, however, is when this ancient canal was constructed and by whom and whether it was a waterway or a pure defence against the east.

Napoleon had contemplated the construction of another, modern, north-south canal to join the Mediterranean and Red Sea. But his project was abandoned after the preliminary survey erroneously concluded that the Red Sea was higher than the Mediterranean, making a locks-based canal too expensive and very long to construct. The Napoleonic survey commission's error came from fragmented readings mostly done during wartime, which resulted in imprecise calculations.

Though by this time unnavigable, the ancient route from Bubastis to the Red Sea still channeled water in spots as late as 1861 and as far east as Kassassin.

History of Suez Canal
Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973
Capacity
Napoleon discovers an ancient canal