Papers from the twenty-ninth meeting of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held in Cambridge, 20-22 July, 1995 || Dilmun, victim of world recession

Dilmun, victim of world recessionAuthor(s): Harriet CrawfordSource: Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, Vol. 26, Papers from the twenty-ninth meeting of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held in Cambridge, 20-22 July, 1995(1996), pp. 13-22Published by: ArchaeopressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41223567 .

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Dilmun, victim of world recession

Harriet Crawford

It is generally accepted that the prosperity of Dilmun in the first quarter of the second millennium was intimately connected with its role as a middle man in the complex trade network which linked south Mesopotamia with the Indus valley and Oman. There is also evidence for trade between Dilmun and Susa in south- west Iran. There is now a consensus among scholars that, by this time Dilmun comprised three geographical areas, Failaka, the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, its centre.

Early scholars such as Oppenheim (1954:15) saw economic collapse in Dilmun at about the time that the name ceases to appear commonly in the economic texts from south Mesopotamia. This coincides roughly with the end of the Isin-Larsa period c.1780, although occasional references continue into the Old Babylonian period. Such limited archaeological evidence as became available over the next twenty years, much of it from the Qala'at al Bahrain seemed to support this view. The area of Early Dilmun City II represented at the site by trench 520 in the north, was deserted at about this time and there also appeared to be a hiatus in the area of the 'Kassite warehouse' in the central area. (Bibby 1972:358/9)

Recent archaeological work has added to our information about the later years of the Early Dilmun period and clarified the picture. There is little doubt that there was a contraction in the local economy around this period, but collapse now seems too dramatic a description; Early Dilmun seems to have ended, not with a bang, but with a whimper. There is also a growing body of evidence which suggests that there is a thread of continuity linking the late Early Dilmun period with the succeeding Kassite period. Elements of the Early Dilmun civilization seem to have survived into the later period. This in turn may indicate that the two are not as far apart in time as was originally proposed. This paper will attempt to bring together some of the recently published work on the subject and will then review the evidence for the causes of this economic decline.



1 4 Dilmun, victim of world recession

Support for a degree of continuity may soon be conclusively provided by work in progress on the original field reports of the Danish expedition and on limited new excavation at the Qala'at in the area known as the 'Kassite warehouse'. Here at least, there is little evidence for a prolonged hiatus between Early Dilmun City II and Kassite City III. The foundation of this building apparently dates to the Early Dilmun period of City II, while the upper floor is Kassite in date. (Newsletter of the Society for Arabian Studies 1994:10) The implication of this is surely that the end of the Early Dilmun and the beginning of the Kassite levels are closer in time than was previously thought. The absolute date of the end of City II is still being debated. There is a strong case on historical grounds for suggesting that it may belong to the period after 1 760 and the defeat of Larsa by Hammurabi of Babylon, (see below) rather than to c.1900, a date tentatively suggested in the recent publication of the first volume of the excavation report. (Hojlund 1994) Further publication of the evidence from the west trench at the Qala'at will be of great interest.

Perhaps the best evidence for continuity between Early Dilmun and Kassite levels comes from Failaka, often described as a Dilmun colony. There is thought to have been continuous occupation, albeit not all at the same site, on the island from its foundation in the late third millennium to the Kassite level 3b and no economic pressures are apparent in this sequence of occupation. Monumental buildings apparently occur in all phases, except perhaps the first. ( for a summary see H0jlund 1987 & Calvet & Gachet 1990)

Recent work on graves from al Hajjar, al Maqsha and Hamad town has also provided evidence for some degree of continuity between late Early Dilmun and Kassite burials, both in the contents of the graves and from the fact that multiple burial in rockcut tombs, thought to be characteristic of the Kassite phase, can now be shown to occur during the Early Dilmun period. (Dentón 1994:125) In sum, recent work here also suggests a process of gradual change rather than a dramatic break in tradition at the end of the Early Dilmun period.

Turning to the site of Barbar, there is no conclusive evidence at the Temple for the site being deserted as early as 1900. The big architectural changes to be seen between temples II/III take place within the timespan of City II, ie prior to the decline, but the site seems to have been deserted considerably later than this. Temple III is difficult to date, but Mortensen suggests (1986:185,) that it may have survived well into the Old Babylonian period. Hojlund is also prepared to see Temple III as outlasting City II. (1994:141.fig 395)

In the countryside there is undoubtedly a contraction in the number of settlements at a time equivalent to the end of City lie. Settlements like Diraz and Saar are abandoned, though at the former no information is available on how or



Crawford 15

why this happened. At Saar, on the other hand, it was a long slow process with the temple apparently remaining in use after many of the houses were abandoned. One or two atypical houses on the main street seem to have continued in use after much of the settlement was deserted. The architecture and contents of these latest buildings suggest that the settlement remained quite prosperous even after the contraction took place. The most remarkable of these late buildings is House 53, on the main street, built over one, or probably two, of the standard cL-shaped' houses typical of the main phase of the settlement. (Killick et al 1991) It covers approximately 100 sq.m., excluding the courtyard, and breaks down into three related sections of which two seem to be domestic and one a storage and work area. The finds include two Persian Gulf style seals, one from the building and one from the rubble above it, one Dilmun seal in Kjaerum's style Ib,(l) (Kjaerum 1980) and a clay token with a design on it which can be matched at a number of other sites on the island including the Qala'at. Kjaerum suggests that the style Ib seals are later in date than the classic Early Dilmun la seals, but the Persian Gulf group is seen as earlier, so these seals do not provide a satisfactory chronological framework for dating the building. There are also storage jars, pieces of unusual painted pot, a fine chisel and fragments of imported copper among the finds, all of which suggest that the building was lived in by a prosperous family which was economically active even in what seems to be the last phase of the site.

The archaeological evidence is still inconclusive, but graves and settlements both point in the direction of a less dramatic reconstruction of the last years of the Early Dilmun period and to a gradual ebbing away of prosperity. This period is also likely to have survived rather longer than used to be thought, bringing it closer in time to the succeeding Early Kassite phase. There can be no doubt that the decline is closely linked with the changing economic circumstances affecting each of Dilmun' s main trading partners. We will now turn to the reasons for this economic decline and will review the evidence country by country.

Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is the best documented of the countries with which Dilmun traded and it has long been assumed that the economic decline of south Mesopotamia in the Old Babylonian period, and the availability of copper from Cyprus for the first time, undercut Omani copper and forced the Dilmun merchants out of business. It is now possible to amplify this picture thanks mainly to the work of Gasche (1989) on south Babylonia, Stone (1987) on Nippur and Van de Mieroop on Ur (1992).

The political picture in north and south Mesopotamia at the accession of Hammurabi of Babylon in 1792 (on the middle chronology) is well known.




Shamshi-Adad of Assyria was the most important power to the north with Eshnunna on his south-eastern borders in the Diyala valley. Hammurabi's kingdom lay sandwiched between these and the kingdoms of Isin and Larsa on the southern plain. The death of Shamshi-Adad precipitated a number of events and a political free-for-all which culminated in Assyria's power being reduced to a tiny rump kingdom in the north. Hammurabi had been quietly consolidating his position during the reign of Shamshi-Adad and was able to take control of all the southern plain after his defeat of the last independent prince in the south, Rim-Sin of Larsa. This took place in his 30th year in 1763. (For the history of the period see Kuhrt 1995)

Rim-Sin of Larsa had, prior to his defeat and importantly for our purposes, been the overlord of Ur the major port of entry for the Gulf trade, since about 1794. He had, however, pursued a policy of making Larsa the commercial centre on the southern plain so Ur found itself being relegated to the status of a provincial town during his rule.(Muhly 1973:298) It is suggested that this reverse may mark the beginning of Dilmun' s economic problems. These continued to intensify as Hammurabi seems to have taken little interest in fostering the recovery of the city after his defeat of Larsa. Perhaps this was because he had his sights fixed on another prize. In his 35th year he launched a devastating attack on Mari, a major port of trade on the middle Euphrates. These culminated in its sack by his army and brought the whole of the middle Euphrates under his control, allowing him to regulate trade up and down this vital stretch of the river. Leemans (1960:137) has noted that direct trade was established between Babylonia and places as far north as Emar and Karkemish, as well as with Haleb and Qatna to the west. Babylon now had easy access to the copper mines of central and Eastern Turkey as well as to the emerging market in Cypriot copper.

Commercial contacts between eastern Anatolia and Babylon are indicated even prior to this by the widespread use of haemetite for cylinder seals throughout the Old Babylonian period, when it replaced the steatite popular in earlier periods. (Sax et al 1993) Haemetite originates in the south-east of Anatolia, the steatite probably came from the Gulf region. (Moorey 1994) It was quite probably the access to Anatolian copper, rather than to Cypriot goods which spelt the beginning of the end of the Dilmun trade, but it was a slow process. A text from Hammurabi's son Samsuiluna's 5th year (Millard 1973:212) refers to copper from both Cyprus and Dilmun. This lends further support to the view that Dilmun struggled on for a while after the time of Hammurabi in the face of fierce competition from other suppliers. So too does the reference quoted by Leemans for tin entering Babylonia from the Gulf in the Old Babylonian period. (1960:35)



Crawford 1 7

Babylon's control of the middle Euphrates seems to have been maintained for about 50 years, long after control of the south had slipped away, as Samsuiluna built a temple at Sagartum on the Khabur in his 33rd year. (Gadd 1973:222) The copper supply route to the north and west was open at least for these 50 years.

The final coup de grace to the Dilmun trade was probably a series of revolts under another king of Larsa, Rim-sin II against Samsuiluna by the old cities of the southern plain. The revolts were suppressed with considerable ferocity and Samsuiluna' s 1 lth year is called after the destruction of the walls of both Ur and Uruk.

Ur seems to have struggled on for a while, but the lack of maintenance on the canal system and, as a result, increasing problems with salinisation, led to agricultural collapse and severe depopulation on the southern plain. (Van de Mieroop 1992:67/70). There is evidence from other centres in the south for a similar situation, clergy from Uruk moved to Kish, as too did the cult of Inanna of Larsa. (Gasche 1989:138) Lagash and Girsu seem to have been deserted after the 10th year of Samsuiluna, Isin and Nippur, the religious capital of the south for so long, was finally abandoned a little later after Samsuiluna 28, c.1720. (Gasche op cit:125ff) Problems at Nippur date back at least to about 1740 when Stone has shown that the bottom dropped out of the local property market. (Stone 1987:26/7) There is no Old Babylonian pottery at all at Eridu in the far south. (Gasche op c/Y: 131) Survey evidence shows little evidence of resurgence anywhere on the plain until the 1 5th century, but the vacuum seems to have been partially filled by the so-called Sealand dynasty about which little is known.

The Sealand dynasty is mentioned in the Mesopotamian King lists as having had 10 or 11 rulers, but there is little if any archaeological material which can definitely be associated with them and they are only known from a few inscriptions. One of the earliest of these is an inscription of one of the first kings of the dynasty from Nippur in about the 30th year of Samsuiluna, just before the city was deserted.(Gasche op cit:138) One of the latest records the defeat of the dynasty by a Kassite ruler of Babylonia Agum III c.1450. Between these dates there is only negative evidence for the extent of their kingdom in that cities like Ur seem to have continued in a semi-abandoned and economically depressed state for almost all this period of time. This suggests that the dynasty was not based in one of the old Sumerian cities. Very little is known of the structure of the kingdom, of its extent, or of its material culture.

The one exception to the lack of latest Old Babylonian pottery south of Babylon itself is provided by the island of Failaka. The island was apparently colonised around 2,000BC as a Dilmun outpost, and had, of course, with Ur, been a major point of entry into southern Mesopotamia in the later Early Dilmun




period. At the end of the Early Dilmun period 2b on the island there is an important break in the pottery tradition (H0jlund 1989 passim), although there is no firm evidence for a hiatus in settlement on the island. In the succeeding period 3a H0jlund has shown that for the first time, about 50% of the pottery is made in the Mesopotamian tradition, using Mesopotamian shapes. The ware is, on the other hand, sand tempered like the native Barbar ware which accounts for the rest of the corpus. Stylistically, the pottery can be most closely matched to that 18th century Mesopotamia. In level 3b the proportion of Mesopotamian pottery rises to 60%. (H0jlund 1994:173)

This dramatic change led H0jlund to suggest that the Sealand dynasty conquered the island of Failaka and made it into a province, as the Kassites were to do in the 1 5th century. It is difficult to evaluate this suggestion as so little is known of the material culture of the Sealands and there is no corpus of pottery which can be attributed to them. Is it perhaps possible that this break in the pottery tradition could be associated, not with conquest, but with the arrival of refugees from the threatened city of Ur some time between 1760, the time of Rim-Sin's defeat by Hammurabi, and c.1740 when it was finally laid waste ? The links between the two centres are known to have been close and where better for a Dilmun merchant of Ur to flee to after the punitive raids by Babylon, than to his partners in Failaka? We can then suggest that they brought their native pottery tradition with them.

The Mesopotamian tradition continues to dominate the Failaka pottery corpus in the succeeding 3b period when there is also evidence for new public buildings on the island. The so-called palace on tell F6 was rebuilt in this period and is abandoned at the end of it, while on F3 we see the building of the temple (H0Jlund 1987). It must be admitted that neither of these buildings has parallels in the Mesopotamian tradition, but then very little is known of the public buildings of the late 18th/early 17th century. Their construction certainly indicates a fair level of prosperity on the island.

The sudden appearance of Mesopotamian pottery in quantity on Failaka at the beginning of period III raises questions which need to be answered. Both migration and conquest need to be considered, but there is also another question. The colony on Failaka seems to have been prosperous and active throughout period 3, which in part at least, covers the period after the devastation of southern Mesopotamia. What did this prosperity depend on and if, as seems probable, the answer is trade, who were they trading with ?



Crawford 19

Susa. Susa remained the one player in the game from the heyday of the Gulf trade which was, perhaps, still in a position to maintain trading links with Failaka. The Old Babylonian period was one of expansion in Susa under the Sukkulmahs or Grand Regents. Amiet ( 1988:82) refers to the building of a new area of large private housing north of the Villa Royale in the early 1 8th century and the expansion of the city. Contacts with Dilmun are also known from the contemporary texts. A document dating to the reign of Kutir-Nahhunte I c. 1730- 1700 refers to 17.5 minas of silver delivered to Susa by Dilmunites. (Leemans 1968:217) There is no indication if this silver was part of a commercial transaction, or if it should be seen as tribute. Nor is there any indication of where the silver originated. Whichever is the case it is irrefutable evidence for contact between the two areas.

In addition to this text there is a building inscription of the same period which records the building of a temple in Susa to Inzak, the main god of the Dilmun pantheon. A number of personal names from this period also contain the element Inzak, as in Wa-tar-Inzak.( Potts 1990:227) It is also well established that some motifs on Elamite seals can be related to those from Dilmun and one or two actual Dilmun seals have also been found at Susa, though they may date to the preceeding Isin-Larsa period.(al-Gailani-Werr 1986) Malfoy and Menn have also shown that Omani copper was being used at Susa in the early second millennium. Precise dates are not given. (Malfoy & Menn in Talion 1987:371) On the basis of these fragments of evidence, and Susa' s obvious prosperity, it seems possible that it is contacts with this city which explain the continued prosperity of Failaka. There is, unfortunately, no confirmatory evidence in the shape of Elamite goods on Failaka.

In considering possible trading partners we cannot rule out the idea, mentioned by Reade a number of years ago, that Failaka also maintained contact with the rump Old Babylonian kingdom via a land route. (Reade 1986:330) Contacts could also have continued up the Euphrates into Syria.

Indus valley and Oman. There are two more areas who were an integral part of the Early Dilmun trading system which must be briefly considered when discussing the reasons for Dilmun' s decline. The Indus valley had supplied raw materials such as copper, lapis and woods as well as manufactured luxury goods to the Gulf trade network, but may have begun to decline before 2,000BC. Kenoyer has suggested that Harappa itself was in a decline from about 1900, Mohenjo-Daro apparently began to suffer even earlier, although the late Harappan may have continued in some areas till nearer 1500BC.(Kenoyer 1991:40, Lai 1994:24 chart 2.7) The recession



20 Dilmun, victim of world recession

in these major centres probably meant that the Indus had no need for imported luxuries, nor was it in a position to supply the exotic manufactured goods which had formed the top end of the Gulf trade in its heyday. The routes to both the lapis mines and the tin sources, thought to have been in Central Asia and Afghanistan, appear to have been cut so raw materials were not available either. This decline in the overseas trade of the later Harappan can be seen at ports like Lothal and Kuntasi where the upper levels also show a marked drop in prosperity (Chakrabarti 1995).

Magan as the end supplier of the copper and timber which were the trade's staples may have been as badly hit as Dilmun by these events in the Indus and Mesopotamia. It does not seem to have been able to diversify into manufactured goods other than the chlorite bowls which it probably continued to produce. Dilmun, and Magan, were caught in a trap from which there was no escape and which had been sprung by events over which they had no control.

Conclusion. It seems fair to summarise the situation by saying that by 1 720 three main factors had brought about the decline of Dilmun; Ur, the main port of entry for Dilmun copper in south Mesopotamia had been gutted; the potential market had also completely dried up, due to the depopulation of much of the south; the increasingly easy availability of alternative sources of cheaper copper in Anatolia and Cyprus undercut the Gulf suppliers and the contraction in the economy of the Indus valley limited the possibilities for diversification. The classic response to this sort of economic situation would have been for Dilmun to look for new markets, but sadly, of all the surrounding regions, only Susa remained sufficiently prosperous to be able to maintain the traditional links and seems to have done so for a limited period of time. This link may have been what allowed Failaka to survive and apparently flourish after the rest of Dilmun was in decline.

The pottery sequence on Failaka raises an interesting anomaly; levels 3a/b show clear evidence of Mesopotamian influences, although south Mesopotamia was virtually uninhabited at the time. It has been suggested that an influx of Mesopotamian merchants in the mid eighteenth century may be responsible for this; perhaps the time has come to consider an even more radical suggestion. Might it be that the Sealand kings did not annexe Failaka as a province, but that it was their base and the capital of their kingdom and that they are responsible for the Mesopotamian traits in the pottery? The final proposition is that the continuing prosperity of Failaka may be the result of trading links with Susa under the Sukkalmahs



Crawford 21

Notes (1) The seal registration numbers are LI 8:27:07 and 2500:01.

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Papers from the twenty-ninth meeting of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held in Cambridge, 20-22 July, 1995 || Dilmun, victim of world recession