Page 86 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

A ROUND STAMP SEAL FROM BAHRAIN, SHOWING TWO HUMAN FIG­
URES, A DATE PALM, AND A GAZELLE. THE GAZELLE, IN PARTICULAR,
IS VERY FREQUENTLY DEPICTED ON THE SEALS OF DILMUN.

phrates and the Tigris, and the Indus, with their millennia-old
irrigation agriculture and their sophisticated city life. Their po­

litical and social organization took for granted the use of bronze
and of writing, the production of an agricultural surplus suffi­
cient to support priests and kings and soldiers and craftsmen,

and the augmentation of their own products by the import of
luxuries and necessities from abroad.
Extending outwards from this central civilized area we have

seen the belt of subsistence farmers, the users of stone tools, who
have gradually during the last three thousand years extended the