Page 278 - Records of Bahrain (2)(ii)_Neat

604 Records of Bahrain
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THE ISLANDS OF BAHREIN. 223
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known as tho name of tho principal village on the lessor
island of Maharak. In the Arab geographies tho namo is
written ijJl, Al-Arrat, ns if the terminal letter wero tho
mcro feminino ending, which would broadly distinguish it
from tho Mediterranean Arvacl, where the final lottcr is a
radical. But although it is thus quite certain that Tul and
Arath have no connexion with Tsur and Arvad, I see no
reason for doubting tho testimony of Androsthcncs, that the
temples on the island were similar to those of the Phoenicians
—a fact of which he, an inhabitant of Tliasos, which was a
Qrccco-Phocnician colony, must have been a fully competent
judge,—nor that tho inhabitants preserved a tradition up to
that time of their ancestors iu remote antiquity having sent
forth a colony to the Mediterranean. In the old Arab
!
geographers, Istakhri, Ibn-IIowkal, and their followers, three
.islands only arc mentioned in the Porsian Gulf, Khar ale,
La ft, and Awdl, or the modern Karrak, Itishm, and Bahrein;
but the namo under which the district of Bahrein, both
insular and littoral, was more generally known in later times
was llcijar, a name that seems at ono time to have applied to
the capital of the larger island, probably marked by the
present ruins of Bilad-Kadim.
The inscription on Capt. Durand’s black stone found on
tho island of Bahrein authorizes us to believe that the tribe
which was anciently dominant in the island and surrounding
district was named Aqiru. Here then wo have the original
of the Grcok’'/2yu/H?, and the modern ’ Uqcir, or vulgarly
Ojair. Ogyris was tho district, to which Mithropastes had
been banished by Darius, but Tyrino was the particular
island residence from whence the chief escaped to join the
Greeks at Oaracla.1 The position of Ogyris or Tyrino, opposite

on tho const opposite. See Asseman. Bib. Oricn. vol. iv. p. 736, and passages referred
to. Assemanni was a grent Orientalist, but a poor Geographer, and his identifica­
tions aro always liable to suspicion. Iu tho present instanco ho thus supposes
Catara to represent Socotra, not apparently Knowing that tho coast south of
Bahrein was named Qatar or 0allay.
1 For tho authorities regarding tho position of Tyrino and Ogyris, sco Strabo,
p. 7CG, and Ccllarius, p. 700. Yacut says of ’ Uqoir that “ it is a villago on tho
sca-shoro opposite to JCajar ; ” and of Qa(ar, “ In tho district of Bahrein, on tho
coast of Khally } between ’Omhn and ’ Uqcir, is a village named Qatar, from
whence camo tho red-striped cloths, called Qa[ar\ych”