Page 76 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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The growth of Assyria between 1350 and 1200 B.C. coincided with this
time of change. Kassite Babylonia, confronted on the north by Assyria, on the west
by nomadic tribes, and on the south by the Sealand, eventually gave way to the
Second Sealand Dynasty (ca. 1158 B.C.). The abandonment of the Kassite
settlement on Bahrain fits into this general time range. It seems reasonable that
the Kassite political relationship with Bahrain was relatively short-lived and that
Oppenheim’s identification of its agricultural base was a valid one.

Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Influence

The period following the Kassite correspondence between Dilmun and Nippur and
the contemporary settlement on Bahrain was conspicuously silent from the
perspective of Mesopotamia. With the exception of inscriptions from Assur dated
to about 1250 B.C. which proclaimed the Assyrian king to be the king of Dilmun
and Meluhha as well as of the upper and lower seas (Luckenbill 1926), Dilmun was
not commonly mentioned again until the first millennium B.C., when it was cited
during the height of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Sargon n quelled a revolt by the
Sealand under Marduk-apla-idina (Merodach Bala dan) in 711 B.C. and proclaimed
sovereignty over Elam, Kaduniash, Chaldea, and Bit-Iakin up to Dilmun^s border.
As a result of this military action Sargon II boasted that "Uperi, king of Dilmun,
who had his abode a journey of 30 beru in the midst of the sea, like a fish, heard of
the might of my sovereignty, and brought his gifts” (Luckenbill 1927:96-9). Revolts
by the Sealand continued to plague Assyrian rulers, and with each new expedition
against the Sealand came further mention of Dilmun. During Sennacherib’s
campaigns against the Sealand and the eventual defeat of Babylon (ca. 696 B.C.),
the Assyrian king proclaimed:

After I had destroyed Babylon, had smashed the gods
thereof, and had struck down the people with the sword,—that
the ground of that city might be carried off, I removed its
ground and had it carried to the Euphrates, to the sea. Its dust
reached unto Dilmun. T7ie Dilmunites saw it, and the terror of
the fear of Assur fell upon them and they brought their