4,000-Year-Old Bronze Age Dilmun Temple Found on Failaka Island, Kuwait

From one of the oldest trading civilizations in the world comes another exciting discovery – a 4,000-year-old Bronze Age temple, uncovered on Failaka Island, linked to the early Dilmun civilization (3,200 to 320 BC).

During prior excavations, traces of the wall believed to be part of the same temple’s platform were found on top of a hill, and were dated to approximately 1900-1800 BC. Now, the full temple, measuring 11x11 meters (36.08x36.08 feet) in size, has been unearthed, along with many artifacts such as seals and pottery, that confirm the temple’s association with the Dilmun people, an East Semitic-speaking population from eastern Arabia that traded extensively with the civilizations of Mesopotamia.

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The National Council for Culture, Arts, and Literature announced in a press release that the Kuwaiti-Danish team from the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark, which has been performing excavations on the island for many years, made these finds earlier last week. The new finds lie not far from other significant structures linked to this ancient culture, such as ‘the Palace’ and ‘Dilmun Temple,’ meaning this was the second temple discovered in the same general area.

Early Dilmun civilization pottery, from 2,300 BC. (Ciacho5/CC BY-SA 3.0).

Dr. Stephen Larsen, head of the Danish delegation, emphasized that the temple’s layout held clues about religious practices during the early Dilmun period, featuring altars that would have had ritualistic and ceremonial significance. Dr. Hassan Ashkenani, Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology at Kuwait University, was quick to point out that finding the temple next to a large administrative building hints at the site’s importance as a religious and administrative center for the kingdom, reports the Kuwait Times.

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Dr. Ashkanani explained that the discovery represented a fascinating find that sheds light on the Dilmun people’s activities on the exotic and remote Failaka Island, and in the region in general. The existence of two temples at the same site, alongside a large administrative building, highlights Failaka's role as an important center for religious and administrative activities.

The Dilman Civilization: Prospering in the Bronze Age

The Dilmun people built a prominent ancient civilization that flourished from the third millennium BC. It occupied the lands of modern-day Bahrain, eastern Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, and played a crucial role as a key trading hub on the route connecting Mesopotamia, the world’s oldest civilization, with the Indus Valley in South Asia. Scholars also believe that Dilmun maintained commercial connections with other significant ancient sites, including Elam in present-day Oman, Alba in Syria, and Haittan in Turkey, reports The BBC.

Dilmun ruins (burial chambers) unearthed in Saar, Bahrain. (Rapid Travel Chai/CC BY-SA 3.0)

Dilmun merchants held a valuable monopoly on the trade of copper, the first mined metal by humans. Sourced from the rich copper mines in Oman, copper would be transported through Dilmun’s ports and then shipped to Mesopotamian cities, converted into tools, weapons, and luxury items. Dilmun’s exclusive control over copper trade routes made it a key economic hub and powerful intermediary between Oman and the Mesopotamian civilizations.

Despite their trade orientation, Religion was a major part of the Dilmun culture as well.

"The belief system here has a lot in common with those of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. Belief in the after-life is shown by burying the dead with possessions such as tools, food, drinking vessels and gold. We've even found weapons,” explained Abdullah Hassan Yehia, the keeper of the Qal'at al Bahrain.

Failaka Island: Oozing Fertility in an Arid Dustbowl

Failaka Island is relatively small, but its location made it a natural attraction for the commerce-minded Dilmun people. The island can be found approximately 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the spot where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers converge to empty into the Persian Gulf. From here, the Dilmun culture was able to maintain control over the lucrative Persian Gulf trade in general.

Satellite view of Failaka Island, Kuwait. (NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems/Public Domain).

Even beyond its strategic location, Failaka Island was famed for its agricultural produce; its fertility was enabled by abundance of sweet-water springs, which still supply the island with much of its drinking water. The island was an oasis in a larger, arid region, giving rise to the myth that perhaps it was the mythical Garden of Eden!

“There is no doubt that the land of Kuwait is rich with different antiquities, which began from the Stone Age and Bronze Age, as well as from other historic ages,” archaeologists exploring the island remarked in a 2017 interview with the Kuwait News Agency Kuna. “We have found 20 Sumerian documents in Falaika, all talking about the importance of Dilmun, and the big trade relations between Dilmun and Old Iraq.”

Top image: Ancient Bronze Age ruins from the Dilmun civilization found previously on Failaka Island. Source:Bo Hessin/CC BY-SA 3.0.

By Sahir Pandey