Page 184 - The Tigris Expedition

To Dilmun, the Land of Noah

vestiges of an incredibly skilled activity, but no sign of buildings:
large portions of the island had literally been carried away, not only
from the quarries, but from the coast. So much rock had been
removed that it far surpassed the sum total of quarried blocks in the
structures so far excavated on Bahrain. It would therefore be
tempting to prophesy that more buildings are yet to be discovered
beneath the Dilmun sand. There was another reason for this
suspicion: no columns had as yet been discovered in the Dilmun
palaces or temples, whereas colonnades of round stone pillars were
common in antiquity from Egypt to Mesopotamia. Among the
niches in the Jidda quarries were some circular cavities, marks of the
removal of cylindrical blocks the size a man could barely encircle
with his arms. Stones of this shape do not reappear in the known
buildings on Bahrain. They can hardly have been used for anything
but segments for a column.
Most of the prisoners we saw went to and fro at a distance as if
they did not notice us. A few came close and looked at us with big
eyes and an expression as if they were pleased to have visitors on the
island. Some even ventured a broad smile. The major explained that
many of them were dangerous fanatics against the government.
Perhaps these were not among the men who walked around loose.
As we sat down among the niches to have our picnic lunch a
friendly prisoner came up to us with a jug of milky tea. The only
domesticated animal we saw was a white mule. But an incredible
number of cats lurked everywhere, and the major estimated there
were about four hundred of them running wild among the rocks.
And never had I seen so many cormorants. Packed together into
regular cloud formations they could blacken the sun as they sailed
past and out over the sea.
The southern part ofjidda was so remarkably different from all
the rest that I began to wonder whether it was due to the work of
ancient man. The limestone rocks here suddenly fell away to
slightly above beach level, and were no longer naked but covered
by fertile black soil. Date palms and a few ornamental trees grew
here, and between their trunks were truly luxuriant vegetable
gardens. They were so unusually tidy and well kept that it could
almost be suspected that the rulers of Bahrain hated gardeners and
had sent all the best to this penitentiary. The whole area surrounded
a basin with a large natural well from which ice cold, crystal clear
water welled up from somewhere below the bottom of the sea in
such a quantity that we had to jump aside when the proud major
somehow forced it into a garden hose.
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