Dilmun

Dilmun is a country which one finds mentioned during all the history of the old Mésopotamie, since the OJ until the medium of II. It is located according to the texts in the Persian Gulf, and one agrees more precisely to locate it in the island of Bahrain, and also the island of Failaka, located at the Kuwait, even the territory coastal of the North-East of the Arabic Péninsule, like small island of Tarut.

Dilmun in the mésopotamiennes sources

The oldest certificate of Dilmun is in an inscription of the king Ur-Nanshe of Lagash ({{XXVe}} century). The site is then mentioned all along the history mésopotamienne, primarily in texts treating of the exchanges with long distance. One found with Larsa the files of merchants of the {{XIXe}} - {{XVIIIe}} centuries specialized in the trade with Dilmun. This country provides the kingdoms mésopotamiens out of wood, invaluable stones and Cuivre. It is acted in fact of products coming from other areas, like Magan (Oman), from which copper comes, or Meluhha (the valley of the Indus), which forward by Dilmun. Because of this importance, the kings mésopotamiens always made a point of keeping good relationships with Dilmun, when they straightforwardly did not assume control of it, as that seems to be the case under the kings Kassites of Babylon, or later at the times néo- Assyrie nne and néo-Babylonian.

Dilmun is also mentioned in mythological texts mésopotamiens: in Enki and Ninhursag , which allots the creation of this island to the god Enki, who made a country of abundance of them; in the myth mésopotamien of the Flood, the hero Ziusudra was established there by the gods with his wife.

Archaeological sources

Archaeological research in the North-East of the Persian Gulf found evidence of blooming of the civilization of Dilmun, and its impotance like turntable of the international business of this area.

In Bahrain, the most important site is that of Qalaat Al Bahrain, located at the north of the island. Its older levels go up in the middle of the 3rd millenium. An important quantity of seals was found there, proof of the importance of the trade in this island.

On the island of Failaka, one found a material culture similar to that of Bahrain. One found there more mésopotamiens objects (Sceaux-cylindres, ceramics) that in this last, which seems to indicate that this place was used as contact point between Dilmun and Mésopotamie. In the levels of first half of the thousand-year-old 1st of Failaka, one found a stele written by Nabuchodonosor II, and a bowl dedicated by this same king with the local temple, proving the Babylonian seizure on this place.

Tarut, southernmost, was also a wearing of transit between these two areas.

Tylos

After the Life century, one loses any information on Dilmun. It is only with the passage of Néarque to the head of the fleet of Alexandre Large the that one again hears of the Persian Gulf in the historical sources. The Greek do not stop however in Bahrain, but with Failaka, where a colony is established. Since the time Hellénistique until the beginnings of the Moslem Conquest, Dilmun reappears in the texts under the Greek name of Tylos. It was integrated some time into the empire of the Séleucides, then undoubtedly with that of the Parthes. The Perses Sassanides seize them under the reign Shapur II, and keep of it control until the Moslem conquest in VIIè century of our era.

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