Corvee canal construction cost between 12,000 and 100,000 lives

Evidence

Although contemporary reports stress the appallingly high rate of casualties (estimates range from 12,000 to 100,000) and the highly improvised manner in which the canal was excavated, still, the sheer size of the labor force involved as well as the cost and duration of the project testify to the ability of the Pasha’s administration in Cairo to tap and control the human and material resources of his province. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 72