Danish Archaeological Investigations on Failaka, Kuwait, Failaka/Dilmun. The Second Millennium Settlements


Book Description

Excavations in 1958-1963 on the island of Failaka in Kuwait uncovered a small community of Dilmun traders from the second millennium BC. Prominent among the finds were 629 beads, most of them made of semi-precious stone, such as different varieties of chalcedony (agate, carnelian, jasper, and moss agate) and quartz (rock crystal, milky quartz, and smoky quartz), and a range of other stone types, such as calcite, chlorite, lapis lazuli, turquoise and porphyry. Additionally, part of the beads was made of glass: a new prestige material of the second millennium. The study consists of a typology, a classification of materials and an analysis of the dating and distribution of the beads. Manufacturing techniques, including perforation and use-wear, are also considered. In a final discussion, the bead corpus from Failaka is compared with similar material from contemporary sites on Failaka and in Bahrain, along with some thoughts on connections and trade relations, which may be inferred from the materials and forms in the bead assemblage. The study proposes far-reaching connections with the Indus in the east and the Aegean in the west.







Danish Archaeological Investigations on Failaka, Kuwait. the Second Millennium Settlements, Vol. 5


Book Description

Excavations in 1958-1963 on the island of Failaka in Kuwait uncovered a small community of Dilmun traders from the second millennium BC. Prominent among the finds were 629 beads, most of them made of semi-precious stone, such as different varieties of chalcedony (agate, carnelian, jasper, and moss agate) and quartz (rock crystal, milky quartz, and smoky quartz), and a range of other stone types, such as calcite, chlorite, lapis lazuli, turquoise and porphyry. Additionally, part of the beads was made of glass: a new prestige material of the second millennium. The study consists of a typology, a classification of materials and an analysis of the dating and distribution of the beads. Manufacturing techniques, including perforation and use-wear, are also considered. In a final discussion, the bead corpus from Failaka is compared with similar material from contemporary sites on Failaka and in Bahrain, along with some thoughts on connections and trade relations, which may be inferred from the materials and forms in the bead assemblage. The study proposes far-reaching connections with the Indus in the east and the Aegean in the west.




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.




The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East


Book Description

In this book, Aaron A. Burke explores the evolution of Amorite identity in the Near East from ca. 2500-1500 BC. He sets the emergence of a collective identity for the Amorites, one of the most famous groups in Ancient Near Eastern history, against the backdrop of both Akkadian imperial intervention and declining environmental conditions during this period. Tracing the migration of Amorite refugees from agropastoral communities into nearby regions, he shows how mercenarism in both Mesopotamia and Egypt played a central role in the acquisition of economic and political power between 2100 and 1900 BC. Burke also examines how the establishment of Amorite kingdoms throughout the Near East relied on traditional means of legitimation, and how trade, warfare, and the exchange of personnel contributed to the establishment of an Amorite koiné. Offering a fresh approach to identity at different levels of social hierarchy over time and space, this volume contributes to broader questions related to identity for other ancient societies.




Royal Mounds of A'ali in Bahrain


Book Description

The Royal Mounds of A'ali in Bahrain has long been shrouded in mystery and suspected to be the final resting place of the Bronze Age kings of Dilmun. Puzzled by their great size explorers and professional archaeologists have for hundreds of years attempted to penetrate their interior and wrestle secrets and treasures from the tombs. This book presents information from the early days of archaeological exploration at A'ali as well as new data from the joint Bahrain - Moesgaard Museum investigations 2010 -2016 directed by the author. The evidence from both old and new field explorations at A'ali are meticulously analyzed. The results are discussed with a strong focus on the royal cemetery as an institution, using a theoretical approach based on the anthropology and ethnography of death rituals. Emphasis is also placed on developing an architectural typology and a radio-carbon based chronology of the royal tombs at A'ali. In this study, vast quantities of hitherto unpublished data from excavations in the burial mounds of Bahrain is integrated to allow a more informed and diachronic picture of the evolution in tomb architecture, death rituals and social organization in the Early Dilmun period, c. 2200-1700 BC. Philological evidence is presented which demonstrates that the entombed kings were of Amorite ancestry. The study reveals that the Amorite Dynasty buried at A'ali emerged with the formation of huge monumental tombs in a royal cemetery proper around 2000-1900 BC and lost its grip on power c. 1700 BC.







Tell F3 on Failaka Island


Book Description

Six years of excavations in Tell F3 have uncovered several occupation phases belonging to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, Failaka period 3B (c. 1600 BC). Though the material culture of Dilmun was heavily influenced by South Mesopotamia, this was a period where Dilmun regained its former importance after the economic and political collapse around 1700 BC, perhaps leading up to a final conquest by the Sealand Dynasty. The end stages of the development of Dilmun stamp seals are documented, e.g. the first find of a Style III Dilmun seal in a safe period 3B context. The renaissance in stamp seal Style III is paralleled in stone vessels decorated in the Failaka Figurative Style. Flemming Højlund: Former Head of Oriental Department at Moesgaard Museum, Denmark; directed excavations in Bahrain, Qatar and lately on Failaka Island in Kuwait (2008-2017); published numerous articles and monographs on Arabian Gulf archaeology; and organized exhibitions on the history and culture of the Gulf at Moesgaard Museum, at the Bahrain National Museum and in Abu Dhabi. Anna Hilton: Educated at the Carsten Niebuhr Institute of University of Copenhagen and excavated extensively in the Near East, lately (2014-2019) as Field Director on Failaka. Published a monograph on the stone vessels found during the Danish excavations 1958-1963 at Tell F3 and F6 on Failaka, Kuwait.




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.




Qala'at Al-Bahrain


Book Description

The capital of ancient Dilmun, Qala?at al-Bahrain, the most important archaeological site in East Arabia, was excavated in 1954-1978 by a Danish expedition from Moesgaard Museum. The first two volumes were published in 1994 and 1997, dealing with the northern city wall, the Islamic fortress and the central monumental buildings. The third volume covers the remaining 13 excavations, presenting their architectures and stratigraphies. A detailed treatment of the finds is given, stamp seals, inscriptions, figurines, incense burners, human bones, pottery, etc., dating from the late 3rd millennium to the Islamic period.