Talk:Dilmun

The Indus Valley civilization?

What happened to Kramer's theory that Dilmun is further out than Bahrain? Ancient texts call it "the place where the sun rises" which would indicate that it lies east of Sumer, not south. Furthermore, kings like Ur-Nanshe brag about receiving tribute from its "far lands". This brag seems to indicate a fair military accomplishment. Although Bahrain may have been difficult to reach with limited maritime technology, it isn't much further from the port towns than northern Assyria. What is the basis for the claim that Meluhha is the Indus Valley civilization? Unless there is some recent scholarship of which I am unaware, I think this is still an open question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.174.107.159 (talk) 02:26, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Two colorless mainstream historical statements

The following historical assessment is claimed by a prophet of biblical inerrancy to reflect some personal point-of-view: After its actual decline Dilmun developed such a stylized mythology as a garden of exotic perfections that it appears to have influenced the story of the Garden of Eden. In a reverse process, literal-minded interpreters have sometimes tried to establish an Edenic garden at Dilmun. There are two statements here, which apparently both need to be expanded upon, for readers who have never previously encountered this familiar material. --Wetman 19:21, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I have added some sources. If the passage continues to be reverted, more sources will simply be added. --Wetman 19:37, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Question

If it were a paradise for Utnapishtim, I surmise it might have suffered eco damage or at any rate ecological change since. Is there archeological or fossil etc. evidence that the island was previously more lush?Thanks,Rich 20:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Answer: Yes! See German wp. for its artesian wells; see Geoffrey BIBBY: Dilmun - Rowohlt, Reinbek 1973: Climate was by far wetter in the IIIrd and IInd millennium.

Deleted external links

External link or links have recently been deleted by User:Calton as "horrible Tripod pages which add little information, are full of ads, and fail WP:EL standards." No better external links were substituted. Readers may like to judge these deleted links for themselves, by opening Page history. --Wetman 15:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

???

The first contact of the area with Southern Mesopotamia is attested during the Ubaid period, with the finds of numerous sites showing the importation of the ine Ubaid were pottery. Prior to this period, shellfish middens attest to the presence of semi-perminent settlements of hunter-gatherer-fisherfolk of the Arabian bifacial industry tradition.

ine? bifacial? HUH?!? --69.12.157.118 22:16, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

"Bifacial" refers to a biface, a chipped stone tool class with an archaeological record going back tens of thousands of years. Different styles or manufacturing methods are used to typify different populations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.244.79.51 (talk) 16:21, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Tylos

Tylos should not direct to Dilmun as they were two different periods - Tylos was what Bahrain was known as by Alexander the Great and the Greeks. It needs a new page and the link removed. Dilmun (talk) 21:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

No settlements?

"To date (2008) archaeology has failed to find a site in existence from 3300 B.C.(Uruk IV) to 556 B.C.(Neo-Babylonian Era) when Dilmun (Telmun) appears in texts." I find this statement puzzling, because Barbar Temple has been dated to 3000 B.C... Moon Oracle (talk) 20:56, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

following my information; the oldest Barbar temple dates around 2250 BC. I am not sure whether they found older objects, perhaps some kind of heirlooms or older objects traded, but there is indeed so far no settlement on Bahrain, dating much before 2300 BC. At this point the Barbar temple article is not correct. best wishes -- Udimu (talk) 21:54, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I shall follow up on this, I believe the temple's own tourist information states 3000 BC but of course this is marketing... nevertheless, 2250 BC is certainly earlier than 556 BC and contemporary with a lot of the Sumerian texts. This article http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go2081/is_3_125/ai_n29241079/ states "C. Larsen (1983) pushed the beginning of the temple into the early part of the third millennium B.C.E." Moon Oracle (talk) 08:46, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

my source is (H. Hellmuth Anderson, Flemming Holjund: The Barbar Temples, In: Harriet Crawford (editor), Michael Rice (editor): Traces of paradise: the archaeology of Bahrain 2500B.C.-300A.D. University College, London 2000, ISBN 0-9538666-0-2, p. 89-92). I wonder whether this is just a theory of Larsen, not followed by others working in that field. best wishes -- Udimu (talk) 09:20, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

My recollection via Bibby is that older remains eta 4000BC were inaccessible eg at the Tell at Tarut. Secondly, I note only one reference to changes in sea-level to around 6000bp - The maps which show the available land-area into the current sea is significant. is this worth a considered answer? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nojoking (talk • contribs) 18:23, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Source for article expansion

Archaeology of the Arabian Gulf, although it generally presupposes the Bahrain hypothesis. — LlywelynII 08:41, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Further sources: de.wikipedia and fr.wikipedia - they both would well bolster en.wp's information. - Nuremberg - Ángel.García 131.188.254.13 (talk) 19:41, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Well-supported edit reverted

The notorious editwarrior User: Til Eulenspiegel reverts the following edit:

• A quote from the promise of Enki to Ninhursag, the Earth Mother: "For Dilmun, the land of my lady's heart, I will create long waterways, rivers and canals, whereby water will flow to quench the thirst of all beings and bring abundance to all that lives.(from "Enki and Ninhursag).

• A reference to the highly relevant article by Jeffrey Rose (University of Birmingham) Jeffrey Rose, "New light on human prehistory in the Arabo-Persian Gulf oasis" Current Anthropology 51.6 (December 2010).

If this is reverted again I shall ask for a third opinion without fruitless struggling with this notorious editor.--Wetman (talk) 00:28, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

No need to comment on editors, I only wish to discuss the content. I have a problem with your contribution as stated in my edit summary; it seems to be a synthesis and a serious anachronism to have anything at all relevant to say about "Dilmun" in 6000 BC when this is a geographic term only known from attested records many thousands of years after that date. One may just as well conjecture about "Dilmun" in 10,000 BC or 60,000 BC, but it could be no more than conjecture having little to do with the historical references to an entity from millennia later, which is what this article is about. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 00:56, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Don't we all understand that although the references to the mythic Dilmun in autonomous episodes incorporated into the Epic of Gilgamesh are both literary and late (second millennium BCE surviving in tablets of the first millennium), that the myth of Utnapishtim, survivor of the Great Flood, belongs to the oldest level of Sumerian myth. Utnapishtim and the Flood can't be separated from their locus, Dilmun.

What would be the rationalization for suppressing the quote from the epic story of Enki and Ninhursag?:

"For Dilmun, the land of my lady's heart, I will create long waterways, rivers and canals, whereby water will flow to quench the thirst of all beings and bring abundance to all that lives."

Perhaps we are to be told it's not an "attested record."--Wetman (talk) 16:29, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

That got caught up in my blanket revert, but the only part of your edit I actually have a problem with, is the connection with 6000 BC, and I will not revert the Enki quote part again. So are you seriously suggesting that Dilmun has any reference to 6000 BC or before? No, I don't think that is a shared understanding. My understanding is that the term Dilmun can only be shown to have meaning ca. 2000 BC, which is just as far from 6000 BC as it is from today. The sentence speculating on what the area was like in 6000 BC is thus quite irrelevant and IMO needs to be removed. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 16:58, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Mesopotamia and surrounding Area

All the names you mention in the article on Dilmun are either Arabian or names of civilizations that prevailed in that particular area at the time. Despite all that you write, "The Persian Gulf" without any consideration for the Arabs who lived on both sides of the Gulf until the "Persian" empire's expansion and their occupation of the region to the east of the Gulf. The Persians changed the names of many places and isles in the Gulf, either entirely to give them a Persian character, or to suit their way of pronunciation. Examples of the former would be Muhammara محمّرة (which is now Khurumsheher), Khafajiya خفاجية, Sirb El Thahab سرب الذهب(Serbilzahab, while the latter can clearly be seen in names like Ahwaz أحواز(which is basically the plural of hawz حوز, a property or a piece of land owned by someone), Kish كيش (Originally, it is the name of the isle Oum Qais or Kais أم قيس).Until now you can see Arabian uniform in certain places over there. The problem is the persistence in provoking the Arabs and using the term "Persian Gulf". It should take its name from the Arabian environment, thus the Arabian Gulf. Any logic why it shouldn't?

Jamil Hamada — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.211.102.69 (talk) 19:55, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

This has been discussed before elsewhere. We even have an article on it at Persian Gulf naming dispute. The most recent debate I can find it at [1]. It isn't a matter of logic, it's a matter of what is the common name for this in English = see WP:PLACE - the whole page perhaps, but the pith is "Our article title policy provides that article titles should be chosen for the general reader, not for specialists.By following modern English usage, we also avoid arguments about what a place ought to be called, instead asking the less contentious question, what it is called." Dougweller (talk) 10:22, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Literature? What about Geoffrey BIBBY?

Very surprising that the name of Bibby is missing and a reference to his books is not given. 81.14.57.28 (talk) 14:48, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Geoffrey BIBBY is an archaeologist who personally explored Dilmun.

Bibliography: (de) Geoffrey Bibby, Dilmun. Die Entdeckung der ältesten Hochkultur. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1973 (ISBN 3-498-00440-9) ; trad. fr. : Dilmoun. La découverte de la plus ancienne civilisation, Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1973. (en) Geoffrey Bibby, Looking for Dilmun, London, Stacey International,‎ 2001 (ISBN 978-0905743905) (en) D.T. Potts, The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity (Vol 1 - From Prehistory to the Fall of the Achaemenid Empire), Oxford, Clarendon Press,‎ 1990 (ISBN 978-0198143918)

Bahrain is not synonymous with Dilmun

This article conforms to a highly speculative view that the mythical land of Dilmun was a reference to modern Bahrain. There are far too many scholarly criticisms of this view, the major one being that Bahrain has not revealed evidence of culture older than about 2200 B.C. We know Dilmun must be from, at least, 3000 B.C. This article needs major restructure, and offer valuable mainstream views on the subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:882:100:EF90:9F6:663C:7564:4448 (talk) 06:28, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Dilmun Semitic Speaking?

What is the evidence that Dilmun was Semitic Speaking?John D. Croft (talk) 09:37, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Its in the sources attached to the sentence in the section about language.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 09:56, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

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Howard-Carter 'location near Shatt-al-arab'

This section seems to strongly contradict the introduction and most available research IF it is meant to imply that the major Dilmun site is at the north, near Shatt-al-arab. Statements such as 'of this era' and 'a site has not been found' are currently meaningless. This should be removed or rewritten with adequate accessible references. In a while, say 3 months, I plan to remove it. Nojoking (talk) 18:17, 14 November 2022 (UTC)