Page 56 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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Dilmun. The prolific water flows of both Bahrain and coastal Saudi Arabia
suggested a ready correlate. Regardless of Rawlinson’s and Burrows1 arguments,
Kramer (1944, 1963) preferred a location for Dilmun on the Persian shore of the
gulf. Tlie physical evidence for such a correlation, however, has not been
forthcoming.
Cornwall (1946a) was more successful in his approach to the Dilmun
problem. He noted that Kramer had relied entirely on literary texts. When the
mundane commercial, historical, and dedicatory texts were considered, Bahrain
became a far better candidate for Dilmun. Sargon II of Assyria (711 B.C.), for
example, described Dilmun as an island 30 double-hours sailing distance from the
Mesopotamian delta region and located in the "sea of the rising sun" (Cornwall
1946a, Bibby 1969, 1971). Cornwall also attempted to couple his textual evidence
with archeological data. He excavated several tombs on Bahrain and pronounced
them to be of mid-second-millennium B.C. date (Cornwall 1946a). This estimated
date was revised to correlate with the Ur III and Isin-Larsa dynasties of
Mesopotamia in later work (Cornwall 1952).
The Danish Arabian Gulf Expedition provided the first strong
archeological evidence for Bahrain’s identity with third millennium Dilmun. Tlie
historic imports from Dilmun by the "seafaring merchants of Ur" were copper,
diorite, and ivory (Oppenheim 1954). These goods are also found among the
noteworthy pieces of the archeological collections recovered from the Qala'at al-
Bahrain, the Barbar Temple, and the contemporary tombs. More important, these
first major excavations on Bahrain and on other Arabian coastal sites outlined a
late third millennium B.C. cultural zone encompassing Bahrain, Failaka Island off
Kuwait, and the Arabian coast between Dhahran and Qatif. Both Bahrain and Qatif
satisfy the textual accounts of abundant artesian water. Written evidence for the
god Inzak came from the island of Failaka, this time in stratigraphic association
with the suspected Early Dilmun pottery (Bibby 1969, 1971). This ensured Bahrain’s
identification with Dilmun.

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