History Series 1: Ancient Bahrain

Given the response to the other thread, I’ve decided to start a history series about Bahrain. I’ll start off with a brief history about the Dilmun Era and expand more later on in the series.

Bahrain has more than 5000 years of history (before 3000 BC) and it is home to the ancient civilization of Dilmun (third oldest after Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt), which was the main trade post between the Indus Valley and Sumeria.

As time passed and during the period between the first century AD and up until the 7th century AD, the Greeks referred to Bahrain as Tylos, the prosperous pearl trading center, which at that time was under the control of Alexander the Great.

Many people have the misconception that Bahrain was also named Arados, whereas it was actually the island of Muharraq which was named that and testament to that is the existence of the modern day town of Arad.

Bahrain eventually did become a center of Christianity, although it was never officially part of the Roman Empire at the time and historical records have shown that Bahrain was the seat of two of the five Nestorian (a Christian doctrine stating that Jesus existed as two persons being the man himself and Logos (son of God)) bishoprics that existed on the Arabian side of the gulf, until the arrival of Islam. Traces of Nestorian Christianity are evident in Muharraq, which still has Christian names such as Dair (parish in Arabic) and Samahij (name of a bishop at the time).

Between the time of the end of Tylos and up and until the arrival of Islam, Muharraq was the center of worship for the cult of Awal (idol looking like the head of an ox being worshipped). Awal was the ancient name of Bahrain for the next 8 centuries to come.

During the 4th century AD, Bahrain was occupied by the 2nd Persian Empire, Sassanian, which lasted from 226 – 651.

That’s it for now. Hope you learned a few more things that you didn’t know before. More to come later :).