Page 174 - Dilmun 21

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amateurs played an important role in ecavations o archaeological sites
ushering the beginning o interest in the civilization o Bahrain. his time it
was a coincidence that an amateur was the irst to discover a Dilmun Seal
and roused the interest o proessional archaeloogists to discover more
seals. ١n his book Looking or Dilmun, the late Proessor Bibby recounts the
stoyr o the irst seal ound during the ecavaiton o the Danish Epedition.
Now, we might not have known so much about this type o seal, had it not
been or this accidental discovery.

Bibby tells us that, ١t had happened three years beore? during our irst
season on the island. ne o the amateur archaeologists o Bahrain,An
American engineer with the oil company, sent us a word that he had ound a
seal. He had been wandeirng among the grave mounds that lie to either side
o the road to Budeiya, the road htat we could see rom the rampatrs around
our camp. And the seal had simply been there, lying on the surace. We came
and looked at it, and borrow-ed it, and made a plaster cast. And we sent a
description back to Aarus, to the proessor o classical archaeolog,y to ask
him i he could ind anything similar in the books, And he replied with a
reerence to an atricle by Proessor .‫ﻝ‬. add, published nearly a quarter o
a centuyr earlier, in 192 in Proceedings o the British Academy.

he incidental discoveyr o this seal led to the discoveyr o many more by the
Danish Epedition and other subsequent teams. hese seals were not
restricted to the islands o Bahrain but also to ohter patrs o Dlimun Proper
such as the island o Failaka in the notrh. he number o Dilmun Seals ound
in Bahrain is estimated at 550 seals while 40() were ound in Failaka.

Description o the Dilmun Seals iwll shed light on the artistic eatures and
mode o manuacture. .r A١-Sindi in his detailed study o the seals devotes
some time to their descripitons and usages among many other things. It is
inevitable in this contet to quote him on his deinition o the seal:

lt is a piece o stone small in size the average o which is 2.5 cm; the largest

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