Page 277 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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contained an Islamic, Hellenistic, and Neo-Babylonian sequence. Two small
portions of the collection were examined. These were identified as Pit 1 and the
Profile Pit of Danish site number 518 (number 110 in Appendix II).
As in the case of the Barbar materials presented earlier, a simple
presence-absence graph was made using the recognizable pottery types from the
collection. No attempt was made to define this pottery statistically. Figure 55
presents the results of the preliminary analysis. Distinct patterns occur in the
sequence. The uppermost levels of the two soundings are Late and medieval
Islamic. The lower levels are characterized by three additional components.
Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian pottery forms were present in the lowermost
levels, overlain by Achaemenid-Seleucid-Parthian and late Parthian-Sasanian
levels. The mid-level pottery is broadly similar to Bibby’s soundings along the "one
hundred meter trench," but it was possible to identify late Parthian-Sasanian
pottery in the collection. This, in turn, points to a closer temporal definition than
has been previously discussed.

Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Occupations (Gfet Kammer, bundlag)

Three distinct vessels are found in the lowermost levels of the two soundings.
These are drawn in Figures 54d-g, and 56e-h. Vessels 54d-g and 56h have already
been defined by Bibby as diagnostic types of his Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian
building levels at site 519 (Bibby 1971:26). Both vessels were commonly used for
ritual burials of snakes and beads. Such interments were recorded near the edges
of the building walls of this period. Dating for this time range is by no means
absolute. It is only loosely defined by radiocarbon dated debris from the underlying
Kassite levels as later than 1370 B.C. A terminal date for these levels is provided
by a series of burials in the floor of the major buildings. These burials consisted of
bitumen-covered, oval-shaped, bathtub coffins of porous earthenware. One was
associated with a Neo-Babylonian stamp seal (Bibby 1971:119), while another burial
contained a copper wine service similar in form to one recovered by Woolley from
the Neo-Baby Ionian-Achaemenid period graves at Ur (Woolley 1962, Plate 23, no.
U6644). Also associated with the Bahrain burials was a straw-tempered buff ware