Our Xmas (2003) Trip to Bahrain
If you live in the Gulf, Bahrain is easily "done" in 2-3 days with a rental car (don't try it without one).
Here are a few photos from that trip...
First, on Muharraq Island, near the airport, is the excellently-restored Qala'at Arad Fort. Built by the Portuguese in the early 15th century, most of what you can see now was constructed when Oman occupied Bahrain in the early 1800s! There's not a lot to see inside, but we spent some time admiring the restoration--using traditional materials. And the views are great, especially at sunset.
Barbar is a series of temples to the water gods built 4,000-5,000 years ago. Bahrain is blessed with plenty of fresh water springs, so perhaps they had the right idea...
Bahrain's fame in archeological circles is due to its 85,000+ (yes, that's 85,000!) graves. Approximately 20% of the main island of Bahrain is covered with graves of one sort or another.
The mounds are all impressive, but at A'ali they reached massive proportions: up to 50'/15m high, and some are almost 150'/45m in diameter.
You can see that suburbia is slowly encroaching on the mounds. Hopefully, the Bahraini Government will protect these wonderful sites--some have lasted almost 5,000 years.
The Bahrain National Museum has an excellent exhibit on what is inside the tombs.
Qala'at al Bahrain (a.k.a. the Portuguese Fort or the Bahrain Fort) is where Geoffrey Bibby did much of his archeological work, beginning in 1953. Archeology is not much faster than history--Bibby made 35 trips to Bahrain, the last in 1997...
Bibby's Looking For Dilmun is available in many bookshops online and otherwise. I recommend it for its detailed description of what an archeologist does and why...
We also really enjoyed the Bahrain National Museum's display on Dilmun Stamp Seals. SOAS in London has a few on their website.
And both sites have books available about Dilmun, Saar, Barbar, etc..
One word of warning: there aren't any good maps out there (we looked). Even the tourist office has a xerox of a xerox to hand out...so be patient when looking for sites. Some are not marked, or not marked well. (We drove in a clockwise loop 3 times never seeing the sign for Barbar on the other side of the road--thank the gods we stopped to fight--a look back and we were parked right by it!)
And we never found the graves at Saar!
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