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Dilmun

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Dilmun (sometimes transliterated Telmun) is an ancient civilization usually associated with archaeological sites on the islands of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf and the nearby coast, including Qatif. Because of its location along the sea trade routes linking Mesopotamia with the Indus Valley Civilization, Dilmun developed in the Bronze Age, from ca. 3000 BC, into one of the greatest entrepôts of trade of the ancient world.

History

Evidence about Neolithic human cultures in Dilmun comes from flint tools and weapons. From later periods, cuneiform tablets, cylinder seals, pottery and even correspondence between rulers throw light on Dilmun. Written records mentioning the archipelago exist in Sumerian, Akkadian, Persian, Greek, and Latin sources.

The first contact of the area with Southern Mesopotamia is attested during the Ubaid period (circa 5,300 BC-4,100 BC), with the finds of numerous sites showing the importation of the fine Ubaid-ware pottery. Prior to this period, shellfish middens attest to the presence of semi-permanent settlements of hunter-gatherer-fisherfolk of the Arabian bifacial industry tradition.

There is both literary and archaeological evidence for the later trade between Ancient Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley civilization (probably correctly identified with the land called Meluhha in Akkadian). Impressions of clay seals from the Indus Valley city of Harappa were evidently used to seal bundles of merchandise, as clay seal impressions with cord or sack marks on the reverse side testify. A number of these Indus Valley seals have turned up at Ur and other Mesopotamian sites. The "Persian Gulf" types of circular, stamped (rather than rolled) seals known from Dilmun, that appear at Lothal in Gujarat, India, and Failaka, as well as in Mesopotamia, are convincing corroboration of the long-distance sea trade. What the commerce consisted of is less sure: timber and precious woods, ivory, lapis lazuli, gold, and luxury goods such as carnelian and glazed stone beads, pearls from the Persian Gulf, shell and bone inlays, were among the goods sent to Mesopotamia in exchange for silver, tin, woolen textiles, olive oil and grains. Copper ingots and bitumen which occurred naturally in Mesopotamia may have been exchanged for cotton textiles and domestic fowl, major products of the Indus region that are not native to Mesopotamia— all these have been instanced. The importance of this trade is shown by the fact that the weights and measres used at Dilmun were in fact identical to those used by the Indus, and were not those used in Southern Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamian trade documents, lists of goods, and official inscriptions mentioning Meluhha supplement Harappan seals and archaeological finds. Literary references to Meluhhan trade date from the Akkadian, the Third Dynasty of Ur, and Isin - Larsa Periods (ca. 2350 - 1800 BC), but the trade probably started in the Early Dynastic Period (ca. 2600 BC). Some Meluhhan vessels may have sailed directly to Mesopotamian ports, but by the Isin - Larsa Period, Dilmun monopolized the trade. The Bahrain National Museum assesses that its "Golden Age" lasted ca. 2200 - 1600 BC.

Its decline dates from the time the Indus Valley civilization suddenly and mysteriously collapsed, in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. This would of course have stripped Dilmun of its importance as a trading center between Mesopotamia and India. The decay of the great sea trade with the east may also have affected the power shift northwards observed in Mesopotamia itself. By the Old Babylonian period, trade between the two cultures evidently had ceased entirely.

There is mention of Dilmun as a vassal of Assyria in the 8th century BC and by about 600 BC, it had been fully incorporated into the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Dilmun then fell into deep eclipse marked by the decline of the copper trade, so long controlled by Dilmun, and the switch to a less important role in the new trade of frankincense and spices. The discovery of an impressive palace at the Ras al Qalah site in Bahrain is promising to increase knowledge of this late period.

Otherwise, there is virtually no information until the passage of Nearchus, the admiral in charge of Alexander the Great's fleet on the return from the Indus Valley. Nearchus kept to the Iranian coast of the Gulf, however, and cannot have stopped at Dilmun. Nearchus established a colony on the island of Falaika off the coast of Kuwait in the late 4th century BC, and explored the Gulf perhaps at least as far south as Dilmun/Bahrain. From the time of Nearchus until the coming of Islam in the 7th century AD Dilmun/Bahrain was known by its Greek name of Tylos. The political history for this period is little known, but Tylos was at one point part of the Seleucid Empire, and of Characene and perhaps part of the Parthian Empire. Shapur II annexed it, together with eastern Arabia, into the Persian Sasanian empire in the 4th century.

Dilmun and mythology

Dilmun, sometimes described as "the place where the sun rises" and "the Land of the Living", is the scene of some versions of the Sumerian creation myth, and the place where the deified Sumerian hero of the flood, Ziusudra (Utnapishtim), was taken by the gods to live forever.

Dilmun is also described in the epic story of Enki and Ninhursag as the site at which the Creation occurred. Ninlil, the Sumerian goddess of air and south wind had her home in Dilmun. It is also featured in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and is one of the sites that some theorists have proposed as the true location of the Garden of Eden.

However, in the early epic "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta", the main events, which center on Enmerkar's construction of the ziggurats in Uruk and Eridu, are described as taking place in a world "before Dilmun had yet been settled".

See also

External links



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