Editing History of Bahrain (section)

==Dilmun Civilization==
{{Main|Dilmun}}
[[File:Burial Mounds in Bahrain 1918.jpg|thumb|[[Dilmun burial mounds]] in 1918.]]
Bahrain was a central site of the ancient Dilmun civilization.<ref name=t>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bLRoWtwJnZQC|title=Background Notes: Mideast, March, 2011|work= [[US Department of State]] |year= 2011 |pages=100|publisher=InfoStrategist.com |isbn=9781592431267}}</ref> Dilmun appears first in [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] [[cuneiform]] clay tablets dated to the end of fourth millennium BC, found in the temple of goddess [[Inanna]], in the city of [[Uruk]]. The adjective '''Dilmun''' is used to describe a type of axe and one specific official; in addition, there are lists of rations of wool issued to people connected with Dilmun.<ref name="Crawford">''Dilmun and Its Gulf Neighbours'' by [[Harriet E. W. Crawford]], page 5</ref>
[[File:Bahrain Fort 8.jpg|thumb|The [[Bahrain Fort]], location of Dilmun artifacts.]]
Dilmun was mentioned in two letters dated to the reign of [[Burna-Buriash II]] (c. 1370 BC) recovered from [[Nippur]], during the [[Kassites|Kassite]] dynasty of [[Babylon]]. These letters were from a provincial official, [[Ilī-ippašra]], in Dilmun to his friend Enlil-kidinni in Mesopotamia. The names referred to are [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]]. These letters and other documents, hint at an administrative relationship between Dilmun and [[Babylon]] at that time. Following the collapse of the Kassite dynasty, Mesopotamian documents make no mention of Dilmun with the exception of Assyrian inscriptions dated to 1250 BC which proclaimed the Assyrian king to be king of Dilmun and [[Meluhha]]. Assyrian inscriptions recorded tribute from Dilmun. There are other Assyrian inscriptions during the first millennium BC indicating Assyrian sovereignty over Dilmun.<ref name="Larsen50 51">{{cite book|last=Larsen|first=Curtis E.|title=Life and Land Use on the Bahrain Islands: The Geoarchaeology of an Ancient Society|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q65mRSPPU6UC|year=1983|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-46906-5|pages=50–51}}</ref> Dilmun was also later on controlled by the [[Kassite dynasty]] in Mesopotamia.<ref name="Paradise">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y6KeP3v79MQC&pg=PA216|title=Traces of Paradise: The Archaeology of Bahrain, 2500 BC to 300 AD|work= Harriet Crawford, Michael Rice |year= 2000 |pages=217|isbn=9781860647420|last1=Crawford|first1=Harriet E. W.|last2=Rice|first2=Michael|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic }}</ref>

One of the early sites discovered in Bahrain indicate that [[Sennacherib]], king of Assyria (707–681 BC), attacked northeast Persian Gulf and captured Bahrain.<ref name="Mojtahed-Zadeh">{{cite book|last=Mouthed-Zadeh|first=Pirouz|title=Security and Territoriality in the Persian Gulf: A Maritime Political Geography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oUP8AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA254|date=5 November 2013|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-136-81724-3|pages=119 and others}}</ref> The most recent reference to Dilmun came during the [[Neo-Babylon]]ian dynasty. Neo-Babylonian administrative records, dated 567 BC, stated that Dilmun was controlled by the king of Babylon. The name of Dilmun fell from use after the collapse of Neo-Babylon in 538 BC.<ref name="Larsen50 51"/>

There is both literary and archaeological evidence of extensive trade between [[Ancient Mesopotamia]] and the [[Indus Valley civilization]] (probably correctly identified with the land called ''[[Meluhha]]'' in [[Akkadian language|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.
[[File:AncientTombsOfBahrain.svg|thumb|left|Location of the [[Dilmun burial mounds]] in Bahrain.]]

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 known: timber and precious woods, [[ivory]], [[lapis lazuli]], [[gold]], and luxury goods such as [[carnelian]] and glazed stone beads, [[pearl]]s 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 from Oman 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. Instances of all of these trade goods have been found. The importance of this trade is shown by the fact that the weights and measures used at Dilmun were in fact identical to those used by the Indus, and were not those used in Southern Mesopotamia.

:"''the ships of Dilmun, from the foreign land, brought him wood as a tribute''".<ref name="Larsen p33">{{cite book|last=Larsen|first=Curtis E.|title=Life and Land Use on the Bahrain Islands: The Geoarchaeology of an Ancient Society|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q65mRSPPU6UC|year=1983|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-46906-5|page=33}}</ref>

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 Empire|Akkad]]ian, the [[Third Dynasty of Ur]], and [[Isin]]-[[Larsa]] Periods (c. 2350–1800 BC), but the trade probably started in the Early Dynastic Period (c. 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. Discoveries of ruins under the Persian Gulf maybe of Dilmun.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/09/ancient_dilmun_garden_eden_gulf_lost_civilisation/ |title=The UK Register, Science, Lost ancient civilisation's ruins lie beneath Gulf, By Lewis Page Science, 9 December 2010 |website=[[The Register]] |access-date=10 August 2017 |archive-date=7 November 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107022714/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/09/ancient_dilmun_garden_eden_gulf_lost_civilisation/ |url-status=live }}</ref>]

In the Mesopotamian [[epic poetry|epic poem]] ''[[Epic of Gilgamesh]]'', [[Gilgamesh]] had to pass through Mount [[Mashu]] to reach Dilmun, Mount Mashu is usually identified with the whole of the parallel [[Mount Lebanon|Lebanon]] and [[Anti-Lebanon Mountains|Anti-Lebanon]] ranges, with the narrow gap between these mountains constituting the tunnel.<ref name="UnwinUnwin1996">{{cite book|author1=P. T. H. Unwin|author2=Tim Unwin|title=Wine and the Vine: An Historical Geography of Viticulture and the Wine Trade|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U6XRp6gY8ucC&pg=PA80|access-date=31 May 2011|date=18 June 1996|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-415-14416-2|page=80}}</ref>

Dilmun, sometimes described as "the place where the sun rises" and "the Land of the Living", is the scene of some versions of the [[Eridu Genesis]], and the place where the deified Sumerian hero of the flood, [[Utnapishtim]] ([[Ziusudra]]), was taken by the gods to live forever. [[Thorkild Jacobsen]]'s translation of the Eridu Genesis calls it ''"Mount Dilmun"'' which he locates as a ''"faraway, half-mythical place"''.<ref name="Jacobsen1997">{{cite book|author=Thorkild Jacobsen|title=The Harps that once--: Sumerian poetry in translation, p. 150|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L-BI0h41yCEC|access-date=2 July 2011|date=23 September 1997|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-07278-5}}</ref>

Dilmun is also described in the [[Epic poetry|epic]] story of [[Enki]] and [[Ninhursag]] as the site at which the [[Creation myth|Creation]] occurred. The promise of Enki to Ninhursag, the Earth Mother: <poem><blockquote>For Dilmun, the land of my lady's heart, I will create long waterways, rivers and canals,
whereby water will flow to quench the thirst of all beings and bring abundance to all that lives.</blockquote></poem>
[[Ninlil]], the Sumerian goddess of air and south wind had her home in Dilmun. It is also featured in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh''.

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