Editing History of Bahrain (section)

==Tylos==
Bahrain was referred to by the [[ancient Greek]]s as Tylos, the centre of pearl trading, when the Greek admiral, [[Nearchus]], first visited there.  Nearchus was serving under [[Alexander the Great]],<ref name="Larsen pg13">{{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=13}}</ref> who overthrew the ruling tribe of Al Hamar.

[[Nearchus]] is believed to have been the first of Alexander's commanders to visit Bahrain, and he found a verdant land that was part of a wide trading network. He recorded: "That in the island of Tylos, situated in the Persian Gulf, are large plantations of cotton tree, from which are manufactured clothes called ''sindones'', with very different degrees of value, some being costly, others less expensive. The use of these is not confined to India, but extends to Arabia."<ref>Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren, Historical Researches into the Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the Principal Nations of Antiquity, Henry Bohn, 1854 p38</ref> The Greek historian, [[Theophrastus]], states that many of the islands were covered in these cotton trees and that Tylos was famous for exporting walking canes engraved with emblems that were customarily carried in Babylon.<ref>Arnold Heeren, ibid, p441</ref>

It is not known whether Bahrain was part of the [[Seleucid Empire]], although the archaeological site at [[Qalat Al Bahrain]] has been proposed as a Seleucid base in the Persian Gulf.<ref>Classical Greece: Ancient histories and modern archaeologies, Ian Morris, Routledge, p184</ref> Alexander had planned to settle the eastern shores of the Persian Gulf with Greek colonists, and although it is not clear that this happened on the scale he envisaged, Tylos was very much part of the Hellenised world: the language of the upper classes was Greek (although Aramaic was in everyday use). Local coinage shows a seated Zeus, who may have been worshiped there as a syncretised form of the Arabian sun-god Shams.<ref>Potts, D.T., in: ''Coinage of the Caravan Kingdoms: Studies in Ancient Arabian Monetization'', Huth, Martin, and van Alfen, Peter G., (editors), Numismatic studies, The American Numismatic Society, New York, 2010, p. 36</ref> Tylos was also the site of Greek athletics contests.<ref>W. B. Fisher et al. The Cambridge History of Iran, Cambridge University Press 1968 p40</ref>

[[Strabo]], the Greek historian, geographer and philosopher mentioned that the [[Phoenicia]]ns came from Eastern Arabia where they have similar gods, cemeteries and temples. This theory was accepted by the 19th-century German classicist Arnold Heeren who said that: "In the Greek geographers, for instance, we read of two islands, named Tyrus or [[Tylos]], and [[Arad, Bahrain]], which boasted that they were the mother country of the Phoenicians, and exhibited relics of Phoenician temples".<ref>Arnold Heeren, p441</ref> The people of [[Tyre, Lebanon]] in particular have long maintained Persian Gulf origins, and the similarity in the words "Tylos" and "Tyre" has been commented upon. Later classicist theories were proposed prior to modern archaeological excavations which revealed no disruption of Phoenician societies between 3200 B.C. and 1200 B.C.

[[File:AssyrianWarship.jpg|thumb|Phoenicians man their ships in service to [[Neo-Assyrian Empire|Assyrian]] king [[Sennacherib]], during his war against the [[Chaldea]]ns in the [[Persian Gulf]], ca. 700 BC]]

[[Herodotus]]'s account (written c. 440&nbsp;BC) refers to the Phoenicians originating from Eastern Arabia. (''History,'' I:1). {{blockquote|According to the [[Persian people|Persians]] best informed in history, the Phoenicians began the quarrel. These people, who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the [[Erythraean Sea]] (the eastern part of the Arabia peninsula), having migrated to the Mediterranean and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria...|Herodotus}}

The name Tylos is thought to be a Hellenisation of the Semitic, Tilmun (from [[Dilmun]]).<ref>Jean Francois Salles in Traces of Paradise: The Archaeology of Bahrain, 2500BC-300AD in Michael Rice, Harriet Crawford Ed, IB Tauris, 2002 p132</ref> The term Tylos was commonly used for the islands until [[Ptolemy]]'s ''[[Geographia (Ptolemy)|Geographia]]'' when the inhabitants are referred to as 'Thilouanoi'.<ref name="Jean Francois Salles p132">Jean Francois Salles p132</ref> Some place names in Bahrain go back to the Tylos era, for instance, the residential suburb of Arad in [[Muharraq]], is believed to originate from "Arados", the ancient Greek name for Muharraq island.<ref name="Larsen pg13"/>

With the waning of [[Seleucid]] Greek power, Tylos was incorporated into [[Characene]] or Mesenian, the state founded in what today is Southern [[Iraq]] by [[Hyspaosines]] in 127BC. A building inscriptions found in Bahrain indicate that Hyspoasines occupied the islands, (and it also mentions his wife, Thalassia).