The Barbar Temples


Book Description

This book provides a detailed description of the three ancient temples unearthed between 1954-1961 near Barbar on the northern part of Bahrain island in the Persian Gulf. Two of the structures, from the centuries around 2000 BC, reveal traditions going back to Sumerian temples. A number of spectacular objects were found here, including cylindrical alabaster jars, a human-shaped copper mirror handle and the most famous object from the Barbar Temples, a bull's head of copper. Structurally, a chamber was found over a freshwater spring, indicating the presence of a water cult and perhaps forging a connection to Enki, the Mesopotamian god of the subterranean freshwater ocean, apsu. The temple-apsu is well known from cuneiform sources, but has been extremely difficult to identify in Mesopotamian excavations. The Barbar well chamber may be such an apsu, as the authors point out among their highly detailed descriptions and analysis of the finds. In two volumes.







Bahrain Through The Ages - the Archaeology


Book Description

Introduction, Shoreline changes in Bahrain since the beginning of human Occupation, Variation in holocene land use patterns on the Bahrain Islands: construction of a land use model, The human biological history of the Early Bronze Age population in Bahrain, Dental anthropological investigations on Bahrain, India and Bahrain: A survey of culture interaction during the third and second millennia, The prehistory of the Gulf: recent finds, The Gulf in prehistory, Some aspects of Neolithic settlement in Bahrain and adjacent Regions, Early maritime cultures of the Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. The origins of the Dilmun Civilization, The island on the edge of the world', Burial mounds near Ali excavated by the Danish Expedition, Dilmun - a trading entrepôt: evidence from historical and archaeological sources, Dilmun and Makkan during the third and early second millennia B.C, Death in Dilmun, The Barbar Temple: stratigraphy, architecture and Interpretation, The Barbar Temple: its chronology and foreign relations Reconsidered, The Barbar Temple: the masonry, The land of Dilmun is holy, Bahrain and the Arabian Gulf during the second millennium B.C.: Urban crisis and colonialism, The chronology of City II and III at Qal'at al-Bahrain, Iron Age Dilmun: A reconsideration of City IV at Qal'at al-Bahrain, MAR-TU and the land of Dilmun, The shell seals of Bahrain, Susa and the Dilmun Culture The Dilmun seals as evidence of long distance relations in the early second millennium B.C., Indus and Gulf type seals from Ur, Animal designs and Gulf chronology, Eyestones and Pearls, The Tarut statue as a peripheral contribution to the knowledge of early Mesopotamian plastic art, Commerce or Conquest: variations in the Mesopotamia-Dilmun Relationship, The occurrence of Dilmun in the oldest texts of Mesopotamia, The Deities of Dilmun, The lands of Dilmun: changing cultural and economic relations during the third to early second millennia B.C., Trade and cultural contacts between Bahrain and India in the third and second millennia B.C., Bahrain and the Indus civilisation, Dilmun's further relations: the Syro-Anatolian evidence from the third and second millennia B.C.; Tylos and Tyre: Bahrain in the Graeco-Roman World, A three generations' matrilineal genealogy in a Hasaean inscription: matrilineal ancestry in Pre-Islamic Arabia Bahrain and its position in an eco-cultural classification-concept of the Gulf: some theoretical aspects of eco-cultural zones, Dilmun and the Late Assyrian Empire, Some notes about Qal'at al-Bahrain during the Hellenistic period, The Janussan necropolis and late first millennium B.C. burial customs in Bahrain, Qal'at al-Bahrain: a strategic position from the Hellenistic period until modern times, The presentation and conservation of archaeological sites in Bahrain, The Barbar Temple site in Bahrain: conservation and presentation, The traditional architecture of Bahrain.




Representing the Nation


Book Description

The 1970s saw the emergence and subsequent proliferation across the Arabian Peninsula of ‘national museums’, institutions aimed at creating social cohesion and affiliation to the state within a disparate population. Representing the Nation examines the wide-ranging use of exhibitionary forms of national identity projection via consideration of their motivations, implications (current and future), possible historical backgrounds, official and unofficial meanings, and meanings for both the user/visitor and the multiple creators. The book responds to, due to the importance placed on tradition, heritage and national identity across all the states of the Peninsula, and the growth of re-imagined and new museums, the need for far greater discussion and research in these areas.




The Temple Wall


Book Description




A Winter in the Middle of Two Seas


Book Description

A Winter in the Middle of Two Seas: Real Stories from Bahrain was written during and after the author's four-month stay in the Middle Eastern island kingdom of Bahrain. With a photographer's eye, a journalist's nose for news and a poet's way with words, Ronald W. Kenyon recounts his observations and displays his insightful understanding of Arab and Islamic culture, customs and religion with particular emphasis on Bahrain. In a wide-ranging series of vignettes and anecdotes, the author takes the reader from the temples and towns of the 5,000-year old Dilmun civilization to the glitz of twenty-first century shopping malls. He offers vivid descriptions of sanguinary religious rites, the tribulations of haggling with a taxi driver whose fare has to be paid in three different currencies and his body clock's disorientation from dealing with three different weekends. While not a guidebook, A Winter in the Middle of Two Seas is a meticulously-researched primer for anyone visiting or working in Bahrain or the armchair traveler who wants to learn more about current events in the Middle East than what appears in the mainstream media. In the last chapter of the book, entitled "The Truth about Bahrain," the author strives for objectivity, attempting to set the record straight by placing the current events in Bahrain in their historical, geopolitical and religious context. The author is optimistic about the future of Bahrain and dedicates his book to the people of Bahrain "in the earnest hope that they may, with God's grace, achieve everlasting harmony."




The Persian Gulf in History


Book Description

Exploring the history of the Persian Gulf from ancient times until the present day, leading authorities treat the internal history of the region and describe the role outsiders have played there. The book focuses on the unity and identity of Gulf society and how the Gulf historically has been part of a cosmopolitan Indian Ocean world.




Second Temple Studies III


Book Description

This volume offers a systematic approach to the Persian, Ptolemaic, Seleucid and Hasmonean period, correlating social contexts with the biblical and post-biblical literature that each period generated. The list of contributors includes many of the pioneers of the field of Second Temple sociology, including Kenneth Hoglund, John Wright, Lester Grabbe, Richard Horsley, James Pasto, Robert Doran and the editors. The volume, which also includes an introductory essay on the methods and outcomes of this kind of exercise, furnishes an excellent introduction to the agenda of interpreting biblical texts as social products.




The Archaeology of the Arabian Gulf


Book Description

The archaeological remains in the Gulf area are astounding, and still relatively unexplored. Michael Rice has produced the first up-to-date book, which encompasses all the recent work in the area. He shows that the Gulf has been a major channel of commerce for millenia, and that its ancient culture was rich and complex, to be counted with its great contempororaries in Sumer, Egypt and south-west Persia.




Dilmun Temple At Saar


Book Description

The London-Bahrain Archaeological Expedition began excavations at Saar in 1990. The research has focused on the excavation of a Dilmun settlement dating to the Early Dilmun period, around 2000 BC. The discovery and excavation of this settlement and its associated temple represent important additions to the archaeological heritage of Bahrain, and complement earlier discoveries at Barbar, Diraz, and Umm As-Sejjur. This book contains a full account of the excavation and finds from the Dilmun Temple at Saar. It discusses in detail the design and construction of the temple and provides invaluable new information about daily life, social customs and religious beliefs of the period.