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THE NEXT TOP DESTINATION Situated on the Persian Gulf, Bahrain is an island kingdom comprising around 50 natural islands and a further 33 artificial ones, steeped in both history and the amazing attractions its exceptionally modern capital, Manama, has to offer. Not many people know how far back the history of Bahrain actually stretches, and are surprised to hear that it’s home to one of the oldest civilisations on the planet. And by old I mean biblically! As far back as 3000 BC the region was home to the Dilmun civilisation and served as a trade centre between the Indus Valley in India and ancient mesapotamia for over a thousand years. Dilmun appears in some of the earliest written documents in the world, and was considered a pure and sacred place by the ancient Sumerians, and is even mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh as a virtual Garden of Eden, a heavenly land, and place of everlasting youth. This is probably due to the existence of numerous fresh water springs, some of which even bubbled up from under the sea, a phenomenon that certainly added to the magic of the place and nurtured legends of the fountain of youth. Conservative estimates put the population of Dilmun during this golden era as being around twenty thousand, with the majority concentrated in the harbour city of Qal'at al-Bahrain, today an exceptional example of archaeology demonstrating the virtually unbroken of occupation of the island of Bahrain over a period of almost 4500 years, from around 2300 BC to the present day. Archeologists are still uncovering more of that once-fabled land, revealing a prosperous trading society that had such abundant supplies of water that palm trees grew heavy with dates almost without effort. The site itself, one of the largest and most important of the entire region, is unique for being one of the most complete examples currently known of a deep and intact stratigraphic sequence covering most of the time periods of Bahrain and the Persian Gulf, including ancient remains from the Early Dilmun (c. 2500 BC), Middle Dilmun (c. 1400), Late Dilmun (c. 800) cultures, as well as evidence of the Tylos (classical) and Islamic periods. After this golden era, Bahrain was taken over by the Assyrians and later by the Persian Empire. Next came Alexander the Great and the Greeks who renamed the island Tylos. It was governed over for the next several hundreds of years by various Arab and Mediterranean countries and rulers. In 1783 the Al Khalifa family, from the Bani Utbah tribe, captured Bahrain from Persia and have ruled the island ever since. In the 1830s Bahrain became a British Protectorate. This meant they had British protection, but where also considered a British ally, the main reason for which being to protect Bahrain from Ottoman Turkey.
