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Comment by OskarS | Hacker News Reader

I’m actually really curious about this! It was built in the mid 19th century, was there excavators then? Or was it shovels and manpower? I looked on wikipedia hoping to find some info, but was sadly disappointed. I would TOTALLY read an in depth article on how, practically, the Suez canal was actually built.

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"Construction began in April 1859, and at first digging was done by hand with picks and shovels wielded by forced laborers. Later, European workers with dredgers and steam shovels arrived"

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/suez-canal-opens

Depiction of a steam dregdger working on the Suez Canal

https://www.alamy.com/suez-dredgers-canal-build-dig-excavate...

Slaves, lots and lots of slaves, many of whom died. Exactly as you'd imagine something of epic proportions being made in the 19th century.

It was built with corvee labor, which is not quite the same thing: unpaid, yes, but done by farmers etc as a form of taxation in kind.

Taxation imposed by the state, but I haven't been able to find any citation of a tax code so to speak.

It seems like state sponsored slavery, without a trade. That is no persons are being sold because they are simply using citizens

Brutal.

Oh come now, governments can’t impose slavery - it was just taxation after all /s

Slavery doesn't have to do with whether it was paid or not (many slaves have historically been paid as well) but rather the voluntariness of their work.

I'd imagine a lot of explosions too. Most big excavation back then used explosions but also a lot of individual manpower as well.

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