Page 74 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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538 B.C.). From this time, or rather from the point of view of the next
well-established historical source, Bahrain was identified by the Greek name of
Tylos. "Later Dilmun" refers to its historical first- and second-millennium
counterparts in Mesopotamia. These counterparts are Kassite Dynasty Babylon and
the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires. Bibby (1969) chose to define the
Kassite occupation of Bahrain as "Middle Dilmun", but as yet so little is known of
the first and second millennia on Bahrain that use of one heading is preferable.

The Kassite Period

As judged by the destruction of the final temple at Barbar, the end of the Barbar
period on Bahrain was quite abrupt. A change is also evident in the archeological
stratigraphy at QalaTat al-Bahrain, where a sharp break occurs between this and
the next definite ceramic assemblage—that of the Kassite period. This change in
physical remains is temporally suggestive of what Hallo and Simpson (1971) have
referred to as a period of stagnation in Mesopotamia. This was marked by the
collapse of the Old Babylonian Empire and underlined by the sack of Babylon by the
Hittites in 1595 B.C. Contemporary documentation disappeared for the subsequent
century. As far as can be ascertained from later sources, the fall of Babylon
marked the inception of a new political entity in the Mesopotamian delta region.
This was the Sealand, which quickly filled the void left by Hittite withdrawal. The
autonomy of the First Sealand came to an end by 1415 B.C. at the hands of Kassite
groups who moved steadily southward along the Euphrates River from central
Mesopotamia. These groups seized Babylon and Nippur and made the former city
the religious center of their new empire. The Kassites controlled Babylonia for
more than 400 years, but from the perspective of Bahrain, the Kassite period
appears to have been an uneventful one. It is significant to note that the first two
centuries of Kassite rule in Mesopotamia provided little contemporary
documentation (Hallo and Simpson 1971).
After a lapse of 400 years, Dilmun was mentioned again in Mesopotamian
texts. The record is different from that of the third millennium, however. Two
letters dated to the reign of Burnaburiash H (ca. 1370 B.C.) were recovered from