<P> Herodotus was told that 120,000 men perished in this undertaking, but this figure is doubtless exaggerated . According to Pliny the Elder, Necho's extension to the canal was about 57 English miles, equal to the total distance between Bubastis and the Great Bitter Lake, allowing for winding through valleys . The length that Herodotus tells, of over 1000 stadia (i.e., over 114 miles (183 km)), must be understood to include the entire distance between the Nile and the Red Sea at that time . </P> <P> With Necho's death, work was discontinued . Herodotus tells that the reason the project was abandoned was because of a warning received from an oracle that others would benefit from its successful completion . Necho's war with Nebuchadnezzar II most probably prevented the canal's continuation . </P> <P> Necho's project was completed by Darius I of Persia, who ruled over Ancient Egypt after it had been conquered by his predecessor Cambyses II . It may be that by Darius's time a natural waterway passage which had existed between the Heroopolite Gulf and the Red Sea in the vicinity of the Egyptian town of Shaluf (alt . Chalouf or Shaloof), located just south of the Great Bitter Lake, had become so blocked with silt that Darius needed to clear it out so as to allow navigation once again . According to Herodotus, Darius's canal was wide enough that two triremes could pass each other with oars extended, and required four days to traverse . Darius commemorated his achievement with a number of granite stelae that he set up on the Nile bank, including one near Kabret, and a further one a few miles north of Suez . The Darius Inscriptions read: </P> <P> Saith King Darius: I am a Persian . Setting out from Persia, I conquered Egypt . I ordered this canal dug from the river called the Nile that flows in Egypt, to the sea that begins in Persia . When the canal had been dug as I ordered, ships went from Egypt through this canal to Persia, even as I intended . </P>

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