Editing Suez Canal (section)

====Construction (1859–1869)====
Work started on the shore of the future [[Port Said]] on 25 April 1859.

[[File:Suez Canal drawing 1881.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|1881 drawing of the Suez Canal]]

The excavation took some 10 years, with [[forced labour]] ([[corvée]]) being employed until 1864 to dig out the canal.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Tools of Empire : Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century|last=Headrick|first=Daniel R.|date=1981|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-502831-7|pages=151–153|oclc=905456588}}</ref> Some sources estimate that over 30,000 people were working on the canal at any given period, that more than 1.5 million people from various countries were employed,{{sfn|Wilson|1939}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.arte.tv/fr/connaissance-decouverte/aventure-humaine/Cette_20semaine/1291022.html |title=Le canal de Suez – ARTE |publisher=Arte.tv |date=13 August 2006 |access-date=24 August 2011 |url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110819201458/http://www.arte.tv/fr/connaissance-decouverte/aventure-humaine/Cette_20semaine/1291022.html |archive-date=19 August 2011 }}</ref> and that tens of thousands of labourers died, many of them from [[cholera]] and similar epidemics.

Estimates of the number of deaths vary widely with [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]] citing 120,000 deaths upon nationalisation of the canal in a 26 July 1956 speech and the company's chief medical officer reporting no higher than 2.49 deaths per thousand in 1866.<ref name=":0"/> Doubling these estimates with a generous assumption of 50,000 working staff per year over 11 years would put a conservative estimate at fewer than 3,000 deaths. More closely relying on the limited reported data of the time, the number would be fewer than 1,000.<ref name=":0"/>