before the suez canal was built there were fresh water lakes in the suez area mainly the great bitter lake ,the timsah lake and the ballah lake which were fresh water lakes that were fed by the nile tributaries that were used for agriculture. now said great bitter lake and its tributary were used all through out history as a sorta pseudo suez canal to connect the red sea and the nile which then connected to the mediterranian. first canal was called sesostris canal/canal of the pharoahs. over the millenia tho said canals would undergo periods of neglect and reinvigoration depending on the power and prosperity of the ancient egyptian kingdom at the time.

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in 600BC pharoah Necho II undertook to dig a west–east canal through the Wadi Tumilat between Bubastis and Heroopolis, and perhaps continued it to the Heroopolite Gulf and the Red Sea. Regardless, Necho is reported as having never completed his project due to his war with nebuchadnezzar II of the neobabylonian empire. later when the persians conquered egypt Darius completed the canal that Necho started. after alexander conquered egypt and the persians it is reported that Ptolemy II re opened the canal after it fell into disrepair. however by the time of cleopatra it is said that said canal was non existent any more since its tributary branch of the nile had dwindled.

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after that it gets kinda hazy but in the 8th century AD there was a canal that connected old cairo to the red sea however its still debated whether it was built by governor Amr ibn al a'as under caliph Omar's directions or if it was originally built by emperor trajan of the romans and merely was re-opened by the Rashidun's. in 1000CE al hakim of egypt attempted to repair the canal but however it soon became choked with sand so it wasn't a viable path for too long.

in the late 15th century the venetians entered into negotiations with the Mamelukes to attempt to re-open a canal for trade and navigation however it never materialised since the mamelukes were conquered by the ottomans soon after. the ottomans also attempted to fund a simillar canal to challenge the europeans trade wise but the ottoman sublime porte deemed the project too expensive and abandoned it.