Page 80 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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Pliny was more descriptive. He located the island of Tyros approximately 50 miles
opposite from Gerrha on the Arabian coast. It was famous for its pearl fishery and
had a town named Tyros. In addition, the harbor was accessible by one narrow
channel (Pliny 1969:449-51).
TTie interest and emphasis of this period, however, was directed toward
Gerrha on the Arabian mainland and not Tylos. Gerrha was reported by Strabo to
be a Chaldean colony founded by exiles from Babylon. It controlled the incense
trade routes across Arabia to the Mediterranean and controlled the export of
aromatics to Babylon in the first century B.C. In addition, it was a port of entry
for goods shipped from India and the East. Alexander’s defeat of the Achaemenid
Empire lifted Persian control of the gulf, and freed Gerrha to exploit the coastal
maritime trade as well as the land trade (Potts, Mughannum, Frye, and Saunders
1978). Thus, its importance as a trade center increased with the beginning of the
Hellenistic period.
TTie plans that Alexander laid for his empire were predicated upon use of
the sea. Pirenne (1944) described these plans as based upon a network of
international trade routes linking urban centers (Alexandras) throughout the
eastern Mediterranean and western Asia. This network never materialized. Upon
Alexander’s death, his empire broke into two competing empires, the Ptolemaic
Empire centered in Egypt and the Seleucid Empire centered in Mesopotamia. Each
set out to link India and the East with the Mediterranean world via the Red Sea and
Arabian Gulf, respectively. The more successful of these was Ptolemaic Egypt.
Strabo described the height of the Ptolemaic trade with India as taking place
during the second century B.C. For direct sailing between the Red Sea and India
the monsoon winds were probably utilized at this time although that fact is not
specifically mentioned until about A.D. 60 by Pliny.
The specific role of Bahrain, at this time, is obscure. No tangible clues
are given for its economy other than garden fruits and pearls. One can infer from
this description that Tylos traded in pearls and supplied some portion of the

region’s agricultural needs. A linkage of Bahrain with both Gerrha and
Mesopotamia can be suspected, but this relationship was not a necessarily