The Pleistocene and Postpleistocene History of the Isthmus of Suez
27
The assumption of a Pleistocene strait-like contact between the two seas,
leading through a brackish lagoon-like area, was first proposed by Vassel (published in 1889) and accepted by Fuchs (1881) and by Keller (1882). These authors
compare the hypothetical situation of the Isthmus of Suez with the Gulf of River
Amur, the shallow Straits of Tartaria which separate the Island of Sakhalin from
the Siberian mainland. These narrow straits receive the full load of the Amur
freshwaters and become therefore a very effective barrier for faunal exchange
between the Seas of Okhotsk and of Japan.
In order to assume that the Isthmus area was flooded with Nile water, one has
to accept that the eastern Nile branches were very active at those times. Tpe
Pelusi~lll branch was carrying water until late Roman times (it is still mentioned
by the historians Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, in the 1st Century A. D. and by
the Arab geograph er Ibn Sirapiun. As for Wadi Tumilat, it carried water-possibly through engineering maintenance-until the end of the 8th Century and even
afterwards still brought Nile flood overflow to the Isthmus lakes.
The +8 m deposits ofrecent type Red Sea molluscs found by Fuchs 5 km east
of Kabrit on the Bitter Lake probably indicate an interstadial level during the
Last Glacial.
For the post-Glacial climatic optimum (the Atlantic optimum, called also the
Flandrian transgression) Butzer (1959) indicates a +4 m level of the Mediterranean. This level existed, according to him, around 6000-5000 BP. It receded
to + 2 m around 4500-3500 BP, and at this time the Mediterranean shore line was
still over 50 km inland from its present stand at the farthest point of Lake Ballah.
Considering that the ridge of Shallufa, which separates the Red Sea from the
Bitter Lakes, is only + 3 m, there is considerable evidence that the Gulf of Suez
transgressed in Flandrian-historical times over a stretch of some 70 km of the
present Isthmus (Fig.l0).
Krukenberg (1888a) maintains, based on data from Strabo, that at the time of
the biblical exodus (13 th Century B.e.?) the Red Sea still reached the Serapeum,
i.e. 58 km north ofits present shore, and that by 500 B.e. it still stood at Shallufa,
12 km north of the town of Suez.
It is also evident from Strabo's writings (1.3) that the recession of the waters
from the Isthmus of Suez must have occurred in historical times. Strabo speaks of
two possibilities: the increase in the width of the Isthmus which gradually separates the "Egyptian" sea from the Red Sea, or the appearance of a connecting
strait owing to the lowering of the Isthmus.
The findings of Lesseps (1876a) who described an alternation of severallayers
of salt and marI in the Bitter Lake deposits suggest that even after the interruption
of the permanent contact with the Gulf of Suez, the basin of this lake received
occasional floods from the Red Sea and from the Nile.
Around 400 B.e. the Mediterranean reached, according to Butzer (1959), an
extremely low level of - 2.50 m. Even if this figure seems too high, one cannot
dismiss the fact that ruined towns of the Ptolemaic period (3rd-2nd Centuries B.e.)
are some 2 m below the present level ofthe swamps in the area between the Canal
and the Sirbonic lagoon (the Romani area). Contemporary hellenistic scientists of
Alexandria, the famous opponents Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, discussed the
role of land rising versus lowering in the genesis of the Isthmus of Suez, as weil as
27
The assumption of a Pleistocene strait-like contact between the two seas,
leading through a brackish lagoon-like area, was first proposed by Vassel (published in 1889) and accepted by Fuchs (1881) and by Keller (1882). These authors
compare the hypothetical situation of the Isthmus of Suez with the Gulf of River
Amur, the shallow Straits of Tartaria which separate the Island of Sakhalin from
the Siberian mainland. These narrow straits receive the full load of the Amur
freshwaters and become therefore a very effective barrier for faunal exchange
between the Seas of Okhotsk and of Japan.
In order to assume that the Isthmus area was flooded with Nile water, one has
to accept that the eastern Nile branches were very active at those times. Tpe
Pelusi~lll branch was carrying water until late Roman times (it is still mentioned
by the historians Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, in the 1st Century A. D. and by
the Arab geograph er Ibn Sirapiun. As for Wadi Tumilat, it carried water-possibly through engineering maintenance-until the end of the 8th Century and even
afterwards still brought Nile flood overflow to the Isthmus lakes.
The +8 m deposits ofrecent type Red Sea molluscs found by Fuchs 5 km east
of Kabrit on the Bitter Lake probably indicate an interstadial level during the
Last Glacial.
For the post-Glacial climatic optimum (the Atlantic optimum, called also the
Flandrian transgression) Butzer (1959) indicates a +4 m level of the Mediterranean. This level existed, according to him, around 6000-5000 BP. It receded
to + 2 m around 4500-3500 BP, and at this time the Mediterranean shore line was
still over 50 km inland from its present stand at the farthest point of Lake Ballah.
Considering that the ridge of Shallufa, which separates the Red Sea from the
Bitter Lakes, is only + 3 m, there is considerable evidence that the Gulf of Suez
transgressed in Flandrian-historical times over a stretch of some 70 km of the
present Isthmus (Fig.l0).
Krukenberg (1888a) maintains, based on data from Strabo, that at the time of
the biblical exodus (13 th Century B.e.?) the Red Sea still reached the Serapeum,
i.e. 58 km north ofits present shore, and that by 500 B.e. it still stood at Shallufa,
12 km north of the town of Suez.
It is also evident from Strabo's writings (1.3) that the recession of the waters
from the Isthmus of Suez must have occurred in historical times. Strabo speaks of
two possibilities: the increase in the width of the Isthmus which gradually separates the "Egyptian" sea from the Red Sea, or the appearance of a connecting
strait owing to the lowering of the Isthmus.
The findings of Lesseps (1876a) who described an alternation of severallayers
of salt and marI in the Bitter Lake deposits suggest that even after the interruption
of the permanent contact with the Gulf of Suez, the basin of this lake received
occasional floods from the Red Sea and from the Nile.
Around 400 B.e. the Mediterranean reached, according to Butzer (1959), an
extremely low level of - 2.50 m. Even if this figure seems too high, one cannot
dismiss the fact that ruined towns of the Ptolemaic period (3rd-2nd Centuries B.e.)
are some 2 m below the present level ofthe swamps in the area between the Canal
and the Sirbonic lagoon (the Romani area). Contemporary hellenistic scientists of
Alexandria, the famous opponents Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, discussed the
role of land rising versus lowering in the genesis of the Isthmus of Suez, as weil as