When we dial back in time to the Bronze Age, we’re in the time of the first Pharaohs who built pyramids, the heroic Mycenean Greeks, the Hittite Empire with its chariots, and the flourishing civilizations of Sumer. If the people of Sumer sailed down the Tigris or Euphrates River, to where the rivers meet and flow into the Arabian/Persian Gulf, they would soon come to the settlement they called Dilmun. It was on the southern–Arabian–bank of the Gulf. We’re not sure how large an area it covered, since we know of it mostly through sales receipts on clay tablets in Sumer.
We do know that it included the island of Bahrain. Here is the main island called Bahrain; the modern nation includes this island and many smaller ones around it.
It’s very close to the shores of eastern Arabia and the peninsula of modern Qatar. We know that some ancient cities around the Mediterranean are now under water; the water level might have been low enough at that time that Bahrain Island was joined to the mainland. There was certainly more land above water, and Dilmun may have occupied much of it, including Qatar and on down the coast. Bahrain Island has archeological diggings that appear to be from Dilmun, though only some of the graves discovered on the island are that ancient. Bahrain Island is one of the oldest continuously-occupied places on earth.
You can read more about digs on Bahrain here, with an approximate map of Dilmun.
Dilmun was a shipping powerhouse of the ancient world, because its ships traveled to the Indus Valley region to pick up cotton fabric, which was highly valued in Sumer. During the Bronze Age, all metal technology depended on mining copper and tin. Down the coast of Arabia, in the area of modern Oman, there were many copper mines, so Dilmun also provided the transport of copper back up the Gulf to Mesopotamia. Additionally, pearl-diving in Dilmun’s own coastal region began very early. Dilmun’s fortunes lasted as long as the Indus Valley society was doing well, but when that civilization went down for reasons unknown, Dilmun also fell on hard times. Copper’s price may have dropped, as iron began to replace bronze.
But in its heyday, Dilmun gave us some famous clay tablets, a series of letters written to a merchant named Ea-Nasir. These tablets with cuneiform writing in Akkadian, the language of Sumer, survived in the ruins of a house in Ur. They are now in the British Museum.
Ea-Nasir may have been a merchant of Dilmun whose trading base was in Ur. In the letters, his correspondents complain about the type of copper he has been selling them. The letters are amusing because they feel so modern. Here’s the text of the most famous one, translated by A. Leo Oppenheim, a leading scholar of Akkadian cuneiform:
Tell Ea-nа̄ṣir: Nanni sends the following message:
“When you came, you said to me as follows : “I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots.” You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger (Ṣīt-Sin) and said “If you want to take them, take them, if you do not want to take them, go away!”
“What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? I have sent as messengers gentlemen like ourselves to collect the bag with my money (deposited with you) but you have treated me with contempt by sending them back to me empty-handed several times, and that through enemy territory. Is there anyone among the merchants who trade with Telmun [Dilmun] who has treated me in this way? You alone treat my messenger with contempt! On account of that one (trifling) mina of silver which I owe(?) you, you feel free to speak in such a way, while I have given to the palace on your behalf 1,080 pounds of copper, and Šumi-abum has likewise given 1,080 pounds of copper, apart from what we both have had written on a sealed tablet to be kept in the temple of Šamaš.
“How have you treated me for that copper? You have withheld my money bag from me in enemy territory; it is now up to you to restore (my money) to me in full.
“Take cognizance that (from now on) I will not accept here any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I shall (from now on) select and take the ingots individually in my own yard, and I shall exercise against you my right of rejection because you have treated me with contempt.”
Ea-Nasir has his own modern fan club: here’s a Facebook page dedicated to memes about his really terrible copper ingots. Tell anyone with a sense of humor, Nanni sends this message: These are fine quality memes!