The Land of Dilmun has fascinated many archaeologists and historians, not least Dr. Robert Killick and his wife Dr Jane Moon who arrived in Bahrain in 1989 to discover the secrets of an ancient settlement lying in the shadow of the burial mounds. Under the patronage of the late Amir HH Shaikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the two archaeologists formed the London-Bahrain Archaeological Expedition, and began to dig.

“Uncovering the ancient city was like lifting the lid of a toy box,” said Dr. Killick of the settlement in Saar, near the north-west coast of Bahrain. “It was a perfectly laid out ‘Lego Land’ city, with walls, streets and a temple which had remained intact for four centuries. Lying undisturbed on the temple’s sandy floor were numerous seals, platings and sealings (small irregular shaped seals) indicating that food and drink offerings used for ceremonial rites had been stored there.” Seals were imprinted with cuneiform and used as jewellery and marks of identification. They are button-shaped with two holes pierced at the back for a string to hang around the neck, or as a signature or mark of ownership. 

“The Saar settlement is a perfect example of a Bronze Age site. It is unique because it’s the largest horizontal exposure of its type and period in the Middle East and has never been built upon, thus has no after layers so is relatively easy to excavate. Whereas other sites, such as the Bahrain Fort which dates from the same period, was built upon in later centuries so archaeologists had to uncover layers of civilisations to reach the earliest period.”

Over a ten year period, the London-Bahrain team uncovered a complete settlement including a temple, ninety-two dwellings, a well, limekiln, copper storehouse and storage units. They pieced together the social structure and economy of a four thousand year old society of six or seven hundred people who occupied different areas at different periods. The south of the settlement was occupied in 2000BC but dwellings in the northern area had been abandoned perhaps because they may not have been worth restoring, so people built new houses. As in modern life, there are gradual contractions of populations in one area and growth in others, Dr. Killick pointed out. 

Uncovering the temple was the first project as it was the pivotal point of the city. There are two central altars, each bearing a crescent moon, one of the oldest religious symbols in the region. The crescent could also be a stylised representation of bulls’ horns, another symbol of divinity in the ancient Middle East.

The settlement consisted of narrow streets lined by blocks of two or three-roomed houses with an L-shaped courtyard-kitchen around an inner room. A definite pattern showed that each house had a distinct doorway to differentiate it from its semi-detached neighbour. The houses were not much larger than traditional village dwellings in the Middle East today and shared characteristic features such as a central hearth and a cooking area with supports for pots or jars. From the skeletons unearthed in nearby tombs, the average height of the people was about 5'4''. 

A deep circular well once fed by sweet water from an aquifer was uncovered, the fresh water inlet clearly visible at the lower end of the well. Stone hand and foot holds were set into the sides. The team also found a limekiln which revealed how the settlers built their houses and made pottery and other items. The circular structure resembled a well, but a gap in the stonework signified a doorway which led to the discovery of the kiln, further evidenced by hard baked walls and burnt plaster on the floor which differed to that found elsewhere on the site. The rock at the top of the kiln was fired from below to turn it into lime plaster used to build the houses. The walls of the structure gradually narrowed which indicated a domed roof - similar to the structural formation of the pottery ovens used in nearby A’Ali village today and the firing technique is also similar. 

“We assumed that a ruling class or administrative tier did exist in the Dilmun era because of the large tombs found in A’Ali and Janabiya and the superior quantity and quality of the artefacts found beside the skeletons inside,” said Killick. “These denoted a king’s burial place. But the defined street patterns, stone tools, pots and artefacts found in smaller burial mounds above the Saar settlement, pointed to ordinary households. Apart from the temple, there was no evidence of an administrative or public building, although they did discover an unusual eleven-roomed house in which a large amount of copper was found in one room, so the house may have belonged to a wealthy copper merchant.” 

Saar was occupied for about three hundred years but then abandoned. The reason why, is uncertain. The archaeologists believe that the fisherfolk accessed the sea via a tidal inlet from Tubli Bay which widened into a lake, a kilometre away from the settlement. Apparently a drop in sea levels around 1800BC caused the inlet to dry up and the coastline to disappear, so the settler’s livelihood would have been lost. During that period, Bahrain had also lost control of the copper trade, so Dilmun ceased to be of major significance.

Archaeological treasures on display in the Manama Museum discovered at the Saar settlement include ninety exquisite cuneiform seals, four hundred seal impressions, pearls, carnelian, turquoise and amber beads, obsidian arrow heads, stone tools, fish bones, date stones and pottery sherds. 

So much evidence of Bahrain’s history, which includes the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, shows what amazing stories are still waiting to be found in the Land of Dilmun.