Early Dilmun and its rulers: new evidence of the burial mounds of the elite and the development of social complexity,c. 2200–1750 BC

This paper deals with the social organisation of early Dilmun in Bahrain based on evidence from the burial mound record. Complete aerial photography survey and mapping have documented the extensive mound fields of Bahrain in their entirety and revealed a new and rare type of burial mound encircled by an outer ring wall. From the spatial distribution and appearance of these ‘ring mounds’ it is argued that they cover the time span 2200–1750 BC. It is further argued that the ring mounds reflect the entombment of a prominent segment of early Dilmun society and thus testify to the presence of a social elite as early as the late third millennium BC. The paper offers evidence supporting the view that fundamental changes in the size of the ring wall and the encircled mound occurred over time, culminating in the colossal ‘royal’ mounds near Aali village. The increase in size of the special mounds and the exclusive appearance of the type in the Aali cemetery after the emergence of ten concentrated cemeteries around 2050 BC are correlated with the already available evidence of increasing social complexity in Dilmun. Three clusters of ring mounds in Aali are argued to reflect the appearance of one or more ruling lineages that were ultimately to found the colony on Failaka, Kuwait, and rule not only Bahrain but also the adjacent coast of Saudi Arabia.     

The decline of Magan and the rise of Dilmun: Umm an-Nar ceramics from the burial mounds of Bahrain, c.2250–2000 BC

This article outlines some general aspects of the Magan and Dilmun trade and goes on to examine the Umm an-Nar pottery discovered in the tombs of the Early Dilmun burial mounds of Bahrain. These ceramics are of particular interest because they indirectly testify to Dilmun's contact with Magan in the late third millennium. In this article, thirty vessels of seven morphological types are singled out. By comparison with the material published from the Oman peninsula the Bahrain collection is tentatively dated to c. 2250–2000 BC. The location of the Umm an-Nar pottery within the distribution of burial mounds reveals that its import was strongly associated with the scattered mounds of Early Type. It is demonstrated that the frequency of Umm an-Nar pottery declined just as the ten compact cemeteries emerged c. 2050 BC. The observed patterns are seen as a response to the decline of Magan and the rise of Dilmun.     

The decline of Magan and the rise of Dilmun: Umm an-Nar ceramics from the burial mounds of Bahrain, c.2250–2000 BC

This article outlines some general aspects of the Magan and Dilmun trade and goes on to examine the Umm an-Nar pottery discovered in the tombs of the Early Dilmun burial mounds of Bahrain. These ceramics are of particular interest because they indirectly testify to Dilmun's contact with Magan in the late third millennium. In this article, thirty vessels of seven morphological types are singled out. By comparison with the material published from the Oman peninsula the Bahrain collection is tentatively dated to c. 2250–2000 BC. The location of the Umm an-Nar pottery within the distribution of burial mounds reveals that its import was strongly associated with the scattered mounds of Early Type. It is demonstrated that the frequency of Umm an-Nar pottery declined just as the ten compact cemeteries emerged c. 2050 BC. The observed patterns are seen as a response to the decline of Magan and the rise of Dilmun.     

Archaeobotanical evidence for early Dilmun diet at Saar, Bahrain

A flotation machine was used to process large quantities of earth at the Saar excavation in the 1990 and 1991 seasons. Carbonised seeds and charcoal were recovered from a wide range of contexts dating to about 1900 BC. While overall quantities were low, enough contexts were productive to allow quantification. Date stones were the most frequent crop remains, with smaller amounts of free-threshing wheat and hulled six-row barley. This confirms evidence from other sources (textual, dental) for the importance of dates as a staple food in the Early Dilmun period. A survey of ethnographic and archaeological evidence for date husbandry in Bahrain suggests that the date-palms and cereals were grown in irrigated date gardens similar to those found today.     

Mesopotamian ceramics from the burial mounds of Bahrain,c.2250–1750 BC

Among the ceramic vessels recovered from the burial mounds of Bahrain, a small percentage represents Mesopotamian imports or local emulations of such. In this paper two overall horizons are distinguished in these Mesopotamian ceramics. These are significant because both coincide with major stages in Mesopotamia’s interaction with the populations of the ‘Lower Sea’. The first import horizon is comprised of a vessel type found exclusively in the scattered mounds of Early Type which pre‐date the rise of the Dilmun ‘state’ proper. The distribution of these vessels outside their areas of production demonstrates how they circulated widely in a network elsewhere considered to reflect the orbit of Mesopotamia’s late third‐millennium ‘Magan trade’. Here it is consequently concluded that this particular type represents an important fossile directeur of the ‘Magan trade’ and pre‐Dilmun florescence. The vessels that make up the subsequent horizon of Mesopotamian imports are found exclusively in the compact mound cemeteries and thus coincide with the heyday of Dilmun. On these grounds it is argued that the two horizons are the product of, respectively, the Ur III network of ‘Magan trade’ and the contracted Isin‐Larsa network of ‘Dilmun trade’.     

Gods from north‐eastern and north‐western Arabia in cuneiform texts from the First Sealand Dynasty,and a cuneiform inscription from Tell en‐Naṣbeh,c.1500 BC

A cuneiform archive in the Schøyen collection dated around 1500 BC, mainly in the reign of Ayadaragalama, a king of the First Sealand Dynasty in Babylonia, was published in 2009. The claim of that king to be ‘king of the world’ is assessed, with implications of finding an abbreviated version of his name inscribed on a broken bronze circlet from Tell en‐Na?beh in Palestine. Use of two divine names Anzak and Yau in personal names in the archive may be related to contacts between the Sealand king and Dilmun/Bahrain on the one hand, and ancient Midian on the other.     

Revisiting the snake burials of the Late Dilmun building complex on Bahrain

The well-known snake burials from the Late Dilmun building complex at Qalat al-Bahrain are discussed in the context of pre-Islamic Arabian, Mesopotamian, Elamite, Avestan, and Vedic Indian evidence. Ancient attitudes towards snakes are reviewed with the aim of confirming or eliminating one or more of these traditions as the likeliest cultural context for the snake sacrifices of Bahrain.     

A late fourth‐ to early third‐millennium grave from Bahrain,c.3100–2600 BC

This article presents an exceptional burial that was excavated in 1986 by the National Museum of Bahrain. The presence of two ‘Jemdat Nasr’ style ceramic vessels in the grave makes it a unique testimony of occupation on Bahrain Island in the late fourth to mid‐third millennium BC. A local cooking vessel also uncovered from the grave represents the earliest local pottery production so far uncovered in Bahrain.     

The Dilmun temple on Failaka,Kuwait

The Kuwaiti‐Danish 2009 excavations on Failaka produced new evidence for the dating of the Dilmun temple in Tell F6. The affinities of this temple to the Barbar temples in Bahrain are emphasised, whereas the hypothesis of a Syrian‐inspired temple tower is questioned.     

A seal in the collections of the National Museum, Bahrain

This article describes a Murghab seal amulet recently identified in the collections of the National Museum of Bahrain and discusses some of the other evidence for contact between Central Asia and the Gulf in the early second millennium.     

Dilmun stamp seals and the royal cap

It will be argued in this article that the specific shape of the stamp seals used around 2000 BC in eastern Arabia (ancient Dilmun) was charged with a meaning that can be retrieved when viewed within a culturally and historically specific situation (1).     

Islamist violence and regime stability in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia, homeland of Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers of September 11, 2001, experienced low levels of internal violence until 2003, when a terrorist campaign by ‘Al‐Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula’ (QAP) shook the world's leading oil producer. Based on primary sources and extensive fieldwork in the Kingdom, this article traces the history of the Saudi jihadist movement and explains the outbreak and failure of the QAP campaign. It argues that jihadism in Saudi Arabia differs from jihadism in the Arab republics in being driven primarily by extreme pan‐Islamism and not socio‐revolutionary ideology, and that this helps to explain its peculiar trajectory. The article identifies two subcurrents of Saudi jihadism, ‘classical’ and ‘global’, and demonstrates that Al‐Qaeda's global jihadism enjoyed very little support until 1999, when a number of factors coincided to boost dramatically Al‐Qaeda recruitment. The article argues that the violence in 2003 was not the result of structural political or economic strains inside the Kingdom, but rather organizational developments within Al‐Qaeda, notably the strategic decision taken by bin Laden in early 2002 to open a new front in Saudi Arabia. The QAP campaign was made possible by the presence in 2002 of a critical mass of returnees from Afghanistan, a clever two‐track strategy by Al‐Qaeda, and systemic weaknesses in the Saudi security apparatus. The campaign failed because the militants, radicalized in Afghan camps, represented an alien element on the local Islamist scene and lacked popular support. The near‐absence of violence in the Kingdom before 2003 was due to Al‐Qaeda's weak infrastructure in the early 1990s and bin Laden's 1998 decision to suspend operations to preserve local networks. The Saudi regime is currently more stable and self‐confident—and therefore less inclined to democratic reform—than it has been in many years.     

The stone quarry on Jiddah Island,Bahrain

The surface of the small island of Jiddah lying north‐west of Bahrain is covered in traces of stone quarrying, but although the island probably supplied the limestone ashlars for the second‐millennium BC Dilmun temples at Barbar, the sixteenth‐century AD Bahrain Fort and other eminent buildings, no study has ever been made of the ancient quarry. Information from a geological report and a few photographs may, it is hoped, inspire new research.     

Kites of AlUla County and the Ḥarrat ʿUwayriḍ, Saudi Arabia

A comprehensive remote sensing survey of AlUla County in north-west Saudi Arabia has revealed 32 examples of the ancient, stone-built animal traps known as ‘kites’. Noting that most (27) are located on the Ḥarrat ʿ Uwayriḍ, a satellite survey of parts of that lavafield outside of AlUla County was undertaken, identifying a further 175 kites. These show commonalities with ‘V-shaped’ kites previously identified in mountainous areas along the western extents of the Arabian Shield in the Sinai Peninsula, Negev Desert and south-west Saudi Arabia. A study of the form and placement of these kites in their ecological and geological contexts suggests that they are representative of a distinct complex, exhibiting sophisticated morphological adaptations to target specific games over similar terrain.     

"A wealth of historical interest": the medical artifact collection at the University of Western Ontario

Along with a teaching collection, the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, began accepting medical artifacts for a historical museum in the early 1920s, although it never developed into more than an unofficial collection until the 1970s, when it was transformed into the Medical Museum and Archives at the University Hospital. In the 1990s, the artifacts were dispersed among several local institutions. The remaining objects at the university have been now reorganized as the Medical Artifact Collection. While these objects were once used to educate students about the practice and philosophy of medicine, they are now used to teach students about local, medical, Canadian and public history.     

The Coverage of Saudi Arabia in the “Introduction to Sociology” U.S. Textbooks between 2001 and 2015

This article discusses the coverage of Saudi Arabia in “introduction to sociology” textbooks in the context of two variables — the September 11, 2001 attack, and globalization. The study covers 24 major textbooks, all published between 2001 and 2015. The textbooks were chosen with the help and consultation of many colleagues in numerous sociology departments throughout various parts of the United States. Also, the publishers of sociology textbooks were consulted throughout the process of selection. The method of investigation was content analysis which relied heavily upon studying the content of the text. The findings were organized in the following subsections: Islam; the Wahhabi version of Islam; Politics; September 11th and Bin Laden; Women in Saudi Arabia; Human Rights and Civil Rights Abuses; Social Media; Miscellaneous Positive or neutral comments on Saudi Arabia; Visual Sociology; and closing remarks. The finding of the article is more or less negative, as textbooks rarely mentioned positive things about Saudi Arabia.     

Heritage erasure and heritage transformation: how heritage is created by destruction in Bahrain

This article suggests that heritage erasure is also heritage transformation. The article is an analysis of alternative contemporary heritage processes in the Arab Gulf state Bahrain. I use three cases to illustrate the diversity of what heritage means in Bahrain and how heritage is transformed through erasure. First, I discuss the vast burial mound fields of ancient Dilmun, which in the process of their destruction due to modern development have been appropriated as some of the most significant national heritage of the Bahrain state. Secondly, I point to a heritage allegedly neglected by the state, the religious shrines of the Shia community, which to this group signify an alternative heritage and history of the islands. Finally, I discuss a potential heritage of the future, based on the recent destruction by Bahraini authorities of the Pearl Monument, which was the centre of the 2011 uprising in Bahrain as part of the so-called Arab Spring. Besides their political differences, the three cases are three different modes of engaging the past, either as past preserved, as a living past in the present or as a past that will change the future.