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The Egyptian Workers Who Were Erased from History

September 14, 2018
The Modern day Suez canal. Photo provenance: Wikipedia.

The Suez Canal remains, in the imagination of the world, as one of the most fantastic works of engineering ever accomplished. Who would have imagined that it was possible to unite two seas, so that large ships could cross from one to the other, shortening long distance trips circumnavigating all of Africa? It was a display of the human capacities in re-shaping the planet to meet our needs. Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man behind the project of the Suez Canal, was consecrated as a national hero in France, and received the Medal of the order of The Legion of Honour, the highest order of merit for military or civil accomplishments. The work on the canal was advertised as the great wonder it was, using a relatively novel technique at the time: photography. Attesting the construction: photography The process of the construction of both the Suez Canal and the Ismailiya Canal, much less advertised but also planned by French engineers, was documented intensely. These photographs, however, were more than just photographs, they were charged with ideology and had a purpose. They represented, with feasible proof, the ideas of progress and…


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