Hinterland

The Middle East is more than a site of conflict, as a trip to the region’s most pro-British country shows

Because, sadly, we now seem primarily to regard the Middle East as a place of conflict we often forget its importance as a cradle of civilisations. Egypt has the pyramids; Saudi Arabia has Islamic shrines; Israel sites sacred to the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths; and Syria and Jordan have, not least, extensive Roman remains, though how well these have survived the appalling civil war in the former is unclear.

Another nation with a rich cultural past is Bahrain, probably the most pro-British country in the region, which I had the good fortune to visit recently. The kingdom has several Unesco

World Heritage sites, the most arresting of which is the protected landscape known as Qal’at al-Bahrain. Its centrepiece is a magnificent desert fort and historic harbour, adjoining some pearl-fishing grounds, and one of the Persian Gulf ’s commercial hubs for nearly 5,000 years.

Archaeology in Bahrain remains a work in progress. British practitioners have worked there with local experts, and centuries of sand accumulations on this coast continue to be excavated in the hope of finding ancient shipwrecks. The main work was done by two major archaeological missions, one from Denmark in the 1950s and another from France in the 1970s. These missions began excavating not just within the perimeter of the fort, but in a substantial adjacent site that, almost 70 years after the first explorations, now reveals a complex urban plan of alleys and houses dating from about 2050 BC – the home of the first civilisation recorded in Bahrain, the Dilmun.

The fort itself is much later, but was effectively abandoned for more than 250 years until 20th-century Bahrain began to take a deep interest in its past. It comprises three large buildings, the earliest of which dates from the 15th century. It was the work of the princes of Hormuz, a dynasty from what is now southern Iran. Shortly after expanding the fort to cope with the development of artillery, the Hormuzi were driven out by the Portuguese, who created a well-defended trading post; at that time, they led the world in sea exploration and commerce. Scholars have detected Italian, and especially Genoese, styles in the main bastions dating from the 1560s. This is attributed to aesthetic influences brought to bear on the architect Inofre de Carvalho. The fort was, though, soon a white elephant. Silting-up meant that by the second half of the 16th century, Portuguese vessels had to moor over a mile from the protection of the fort. This led to its abandonment, making its survival into the

21st century, and in such excellent condition, all the more remarkable. Most of the main bastions of the fort remain intact, as do several of its rooms – all with gunports.

The main trade routes from the Gulf led to India and to China, explaining why much Ming pottery has been discovered around the fort. To its south is a much older construction: a Bronze Age city wall built by the Dilmuns, also in about 2050 BC. Their civilisation lasted until about

500 BC, when the Greek, or Hellenistic, civilisation supplanted it. These cultures are reflected in the fine modern museum, by the Scandinavian architects Wohlert,

Bahrain has been one of the Persian Gulf’s commercial hubs for nearly 5,000 years

devoted to items found in and around this site since systematic excavations began in 1954. It lies in view of the fort, divided from it by a site of several acres where detailed archaeological investigations continue. Much of its ceramic exhibitions are of Islamic vessels from Persia, Iraq, Syria and Oman; but also displayed are parts of a 310-coin hoard of silver tetradrachms found by the city wall and in its design imitating the coinage of Alexander the

Great, from the 2nd century BC.

The museum also contains figurative gravestones from the Hellenistic period, Sumerian carvings, ancient Indian cups, Bronze Age jars, Babylonian cuneiform tablets and a fine collection of figurines of bearded men from the first millennium

BC. It is a crash course in the multiplicity of civilisations of this small, but intensely culturally significant, part of the Persian Gulf and, with excavations continuing as Bahrain becomes more fascinated by its past, there is doubtless far more to come.