the chronology of the earliest tylos period on bahrain

Arab. arch. epig. 2002: 13: 234–245 C 2002 Blackwell MunksgaardPrinted in Denmark. All rights reserved

ISSN 0905-7196

The Chronology of the earliest Tylos periodon Bahrain

SØREN FREDSLUND ANDERSENMoesgaard Museum and Department of Classical Archaeology, University of Aarhus,Denmark

This article describes a previously unpublished assemblage of pottery from thesettlement at Qala’at al-Bahrain which can be dated to the earliest Tylos period,around 300 BC. The assemblage augments the published pottery sequence fromQala’at al-Bahrain and presents the earliest known examples of Greek influenceon Bahrain. It also throws some light on the dating of the earliest known Tylosburials, suggesting that they date to roughly a century after the first Greekinfluence.

The discovery of a sherd from an importedAttic black-glazed vessel by T. G. Bibbyand the Danish team excavating at Qala’atal-Bahrain in the 1950s led to the definitionof a Hellenistic period in the Arabian Gulfregion. This period was roughly dated tothe centuries after Alexander the Great andhis conquest of the Achaemenian empire(1). During the following years of Danishexcavations at Thaj, Failaka and Qala’at al-Bahrain several black-glazed sherds wererecovered (2), but it was not until L. Han-nestad’s study of the finds from the Hell-enistic fortress (F5) on Failaka that anexhaustive treatment of the complete pot-tery assemblage from a Hellenistic periodsite in the Gulf was published. She de-scribed two assemblages of pottery repre-senting two periods of occupation. The firstperiod was dated by a coin hoard datingfrom the late third century BC, stampedRhodian amphora handles dated to 225–200 BC and finally two Attic black-glazed

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sherds, one of which can be dated to 285–250 BC. She suggested that Period I lastedfrom ‘around or not much before themiddle of the 3rd century BC to the verylate 2nd or early 1st century BC’, and theconstruction of the fortress was thus datedto ‘around or not much before the middleof the 3rd century BC’ (3). Later, French ex-cavations supplemented the sequence atthe Hellenistic fortress on Failaka and sug-gested a slightly earlier date for its founda-tion (4). Finally, L. Hannestad was able toconclude, ‘It is thus reasonable to supposeas has generally been done that the original‘‘fortress’’ was built in the first half of the3rd century BC’ (5).

On Bahrain hundreds of graves from theHellenistic or Tylos period (as it is calledafter the Greek name of the island) havebeen excavated during the last thirty years,mostly as rescue work, by local teams fromthe Bahrain National Museum and by for-eign expeditions. The excavations have

THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE EARLIEST TYLOS PERIOD ON BAHRAIN

only been sporadically published, but A.Herling and J.-F. Salles have suggested apreliminary division of the graves intothree phases, where the earliest period ‘TheEarly Tylos – Failaka Horizon’, was givena date from c. 300–100 BC (6) due to simi-larities with the finds from L. Hannestad’sfirst period at the Failaka fortress.

A brief study of some of the pottery fromthe Danish excavations at Qala’at al-Bah-rain was carried out by C. E. Larsen, butthe periods he described were very broad(7). Since 1977 further excavations havebeen made at Qala’at al-Bahrain by Frenchteams under the direction of M. Kervranexcavating the ‘Coastal Fortress’ and P.Lombard excavating ‘Uperi’s Palace’. Forboth areas an assemblage dating fromc. 300 to 100 BC has been published (8).

Recently, the Tylos period from Qala’atal-Bahrain has been redefined by F.Højlund with the study of finds from thetwo main excavated areas, ie. the northerncity wall and the Islamic fortress (Exca-vation 520) and the central monumentalbuildings (Excavation 519). Here the Tylosperiod or Period V has been divided intofive sub-periods, ie. Periods Va, Vb, Vc, Vdand Ve (9).

For the earliest sub-period (Period Va), F.Højlund points out indications suggestinga division into an early and a late phase(Period Va1 & Va2). The late phase hasmany parallels in L. Hannestad’s lowestlevels in the Failaka fortress, whereas theearly phase has a number of features rareor not found at all on Failaka: ‘Plates withoffset rim in a sharply defined version witha distinct neck, bowls with flaring sidesand three flutes on the lip, and a preferencefor glaze in greyish-white rather than lightgreenish colour, a lack of plates with in-terior thickened rim and cooking-pots inred sand- and lime-tempered ware’ (10). Asthe layers containing pottery with thesefeatures are stratigraphically sealed by

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superimposed layers containing Period Va2material, a pre-Failaka date for the periodVa1 assemblage has been proposed (11).

These results were supplemented by theexamination of the finds from the unpub-lished excavations at Qala’at al-Bahrain bythe present writer (12). Layers with Tylosceramics were found in Excavations 420,421, 430, 431 and 432, whereas the exca-vations along the southern city wall (425,426, 427 and 428) (13) did not contain strati-fied material from this period. Of specialinterest was the discovery of a group of ex-tremely hard-fired, dark-grey sherds witha grit and lime temper, coming from jugswith either out-turned or trefoil rims (14).Thanks to close parallels in Area F at ed-Dur (15), these can be dated to the earlySasanian period and they therefore belongto a period to which only a small numberof sherds from beakers of fine orange-painted ware have been assigned at Qala’atal-Bahrain (16).

An Early Tylos assemblage from Qala’atal-BahrainA pottery assemblage from Excavation 431at Qala’at al-Bahrain is now presented to-gether with a discussion of its relevance forthe dating of the beginning of the Tylosperiod in Bahrain. Excavated by PeterCrabb and Malene Møller Jensen duringthe 1965 campaign of the Danish Ex-pedition at Qala’at al-Bahrain, Excavation431 was situated in a central depression ofthe tell and was laid out in order to deter-mine the eastern limit of the Bronze Agesettlement. The pottery was found in a pitdug through a floor covered with Achae-menian pottery and the pit was strati-graphically sealed by superimposed layerscontaining Tylos pottery from Period Va2and Vb. Only diagnostic sherds, c. 200,were kept from the pit. It is a coherent as-semblage of local Gulf pottery character-

S. F. ANDERSEN

ised by tableware such as bowls and platesin glazed, red-slipped or grey ware besidesa varied group of common ware with bothlarge storage jars, jugs, bowls, plates andhandle fragments. Together with the localpottery seven sherds from Attic black-glazed vessels were found, which addspecial significance to this assemblage andare described below.

Fig. 1.Plates with offset rim with an internal concavity at the rim. Pale yellow fabric and greenish glaze. 3:4.

Fig. 2.Fish plate with downturned rim that is convex on the outside and an external groove below the rim. Pale yellowfabric and greyish glaze. 3:4.

Fig. 3.Bowl with incurving rim and a fairly sharp transition between rim and body. 3a: Orange fabric with white glazeand 3b: Pale yellow fabric with greyish glaze. 3:4.

Fig. 4.Bowl with flaring side and upturned fluted lip. Pale yellow fabric and greyish glaze. 7:10.

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Glazed wareThe glazed ware (Figs. 1–4) is characterisedby an alkaline glaze. At Qala’at al-Bahrainthe glaze from this period is often preservedas white to greyish – rarely greenish –covering the whole vessel. The bases oftenshow internal marks from the tripod usedfor stacking in the kiln. The fabric is yel-lowish with few small inclusions. The ware


is mainly used for small bowls, plates withoffset rim and fish plates.

Red-slipped wareThis is usually made of a buff or orangefabric with few inclusions. The vessels (Figs.5–8) have an internal, red slip often decor-ated with streak-burnishing. The outside is

Fig. 5.Large thick-walled bowl with a projecting ellipsoid rim. The illustrated example has a sharply defined band belowthe rim but the type is normally seen without this feature. Orange fabric with internal red slip and external creamslip. 1:2.

Fig. 6.Fragments of bases with three rectangular feet with cutting marks. All examples (7 pieces) in red- and grey-slippedware from this context have a triangular cross section. Both with internal red slip. 3:4.

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normally without the red slip except in afew cases where the whole vessel is coveredwith a red slip. Normally the outside is cov-ered with a thin cream slip. The red-slippedware is used exclusively for bowls.

Brown-slipped wareRelated to the red-slipped ware is the‘brown-slipped ware’ (Figs. 9–11). The

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Fig. 7.Large bowl with incurved rim and two external grooves just below the rim. Buff fabric with internal and externaldense red slip. 4:9.

Fig. 8.Little hemispheric bowl withtwo external grooves below therim. Orange fabric with internaland external dense red slip andinternal streak-burnishing. 3:4.

Fig. 9.Bowl with flaring rim, a pro-nounced shoulder and a raisedbase. At the lower part of thebody there are cutting/scrapingmarks. The fabric is light greyand the internal is covered withreddish-brown to dark grey slipwith streak-burnishing. 3:4.

brown-slipped ware has an internal grey tobrown slip with streak-burnishing. Thefabric is grey or brown and hard fired andgenerally thinner than for the red ware.This group has only been identified in Bah-rain in this assemblage.

Grey wareManufactured in a reducing atmosphere,the fabric and the surface slip have becomegrey to black, allowing a clear separationfrom the red-slipped ware. The shapes(Figs. 12–13) in this ware differ from thoseof the red-slipped ware; the fish plate iscommon in grey ware, but very rare in red-

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Fig. 10.Roughly made ring-foot with cutting/scraping marks.Hard fired grey fabric. Internal and external brownslip with internal streak-burnishing. 3:4.


Fig. 11.Bowl with a plain rim and araised base and cutting/scraping marks on the base andlower part of the external sur-face. Brown fabric and internalreddish-brown slip and streak-burnishing and an externalcream slip. 7:10.

Fig. 12.Fish plates with a downturned rim that is convex on the outside; external groove below the rim. Grey fabric oftenwith an internal dark grey slip with streak-burnishing. 3:5.

Fig. 13.Large bowls in grey fabric with different upturned rims. 1:2.

slipped ware, as with the bowl with a moreor less elaborated vertical rim (Fig. 13).

Common wareIt has not been possible to define a groupof common wares, since the assemblage israther small and different ware types arethen only represented with a few sherds

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(Figs. 14–16). However, some details can bepointed out. A group of thin-walled bowlsin a fine, yellowish fabric also belongs inthe period (Fig. 14 & 15). The absence ofred sand- and lime-tempered ware is not-able, since most of the cooking pots in thefollowing periods are made of this ware.Cooking pots with obliquely outdrawnrims in common ware seem to be used in-stead (Fig. 16). A few fragments of handles

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Fig. 14.Bowl with a rounded body and a little outturned rim. Fine, yellowish fabric. 3:5.

Fig. 15.Bowl with a rounded body and an upturned rim with an external groove. Fine, yellowish fabric. 3:5.

Fig. 16.Obliquely outdrawn rim from a cooking pot in greyish fabric. 3:5.

are represented: both strap handles and asingle pierced loop handle (not illustrated).

Attic black-glazed waresSeven examples, all having a dense blackglaze with a metallic sheen, were recovered(Figs. 17–23).

ChronologyThe bowl with incurving rim, the fish plateand the bowl with three rectangular feet

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with cutting marks place this assemblagesafely within the Tylos period and there areseveral indications for a dating to the verybeginning of this period, ie. Period Va1.There is a preference for a greyish-whiteglaze rather than a light greenish glaze.Two types characteristic for Period Va1 arepresent: the plate with offset rim in asharply defined version, though only in asmall fragment (not illustrated) and theglazed bowl with upturned lip with threeflutes. The version with two flutes is alsopresent in one, unglazed, example (not il-


Fig. 17.Lower body sherd with ringfoot with plain resting surfaceand a continuous curve fromthe inner face of the foot to theunderside of the vessel. Intern-ally decorated with stampedpalmettes and rouletting. Exter-nally a reserved band has beenleft at the junction of the footand the body. Fine, reddishyellow fabric; the glaze has ametallic sheen. 3:4.

lustrated). The combination of the absenceof the glazed plate with internal thickenedrim and vessels in red sand- and lime-tem-pered ware strongly indicate a Period Va1date for the assemblage in question. Othercharacteristic types or features, which arenot found at the Seleucid fortress on Fai-laka can be seen in the assemblage andsome vessels show a continuation ofAchaemenian traditions that disappear inthe following periods.

Fig. 18.Lower body sherd with internal rouletting. Fine, red-dish yellow fabric; the glaze has a faint metallic sheen.3:4.

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The glazed plate with offset rim and aninternal concavity (Fig. 1) seems to be atransitional shape between the bowl with awavy-sided rim, commonly seen in Achae-menian contexts at Qala’at al-Bahrain (17)and the plate with internal thickened rim.The plate with internal thickened rim is themost common type from the Danish exca-vations at the fortress on Failaka (18), butit is not represented in this assemblage.

The fish plate is well represented in both

Fig. 19.Lower body sherd with internal rouletting. Fine,brown fabric; the glaze has a metallic sheen. 3:4.

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Fig. 20.Bowl with out-turned rimwhere the upper surface of therim is missing. Fine, brownfabric; the glaze has a faint met-allic sheen. 3:4.

Fig. 21.Bowl with out-turned rim. Fine,reddish yellow fabric; the glazehas a metallic sheen. 3:4.

Fig. 22.Lower body sherd where thering foot is missing. Internallydecorated with rouletting. Ex-ternally a fine reserved bandhas been left at the junction ofthe foot and the body. Fine, red-dish yellow fabric; the glaze hasa faint metallic sheen. 3:4.

Fig. 23.Bowl with out-turned rim. Adrilled hole with a diameter ofc. 1 mm probably from a repair.Fine, reddish yellow fabric; theglaze has a faint metallic sheen.3:4.

glazed (Fig. 2) and grey ware (Fig. 11) andthere seems to be no major difference in theshapes between the two ware groups. Itoften features a groove below the rimwhich, in most cases, marks the upper andlower body and recalls bowls with an ob-lique ellipsoid rim from the Achaemenianperiod (19). This detail disappears in laterperiods. The outside of the overhanging

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rim is also convex, although it later be-comes vertical and straight (20).

In the red-slipped and grey ware thebase with three rectangular feet with cut-ting marks (Fig. 6) is a new type in theearly Tylos period, perhaps copied fromwooden bowls. Feet in this period have atriangular cross-section, whereas examplesfrom later contexts have a more rectangular


cross section (21). The little hemisphericbowl with two external grooves below therim and with internal and external densered slip (Fig. 8) has close parallels in theAchaemenian period, but the internalstreak-burnishing is a feature not attestedin Bahrain before the Tylos period.

The brown ware is only represented inthis assemblage in Bahrain. The origin ofthe group is unknown, but the fabric,shapes and surface treatment of these ves-sels are notably different from those of thered-slipped ware. The bowl with flaringrim and a pronounced shoulder (Fig. 9) hasparallels at Thaj (22), which might indicatea western origin.

In the common ware the absence of redsand- and lime-tempered ware is notable.Figures 14 and 15 illustrate some small finepots characteristic of this period whichmight be succeeded typologically by bowlswith flaring sides and an upturned rimwith external grooves in the same fabricwhich date to Period Vb (23). Figure 16may be an early version of the cooking potfound on Failaka (24).

The evidence for a pre-Failaka datewithin the Tylos period for the pottery as-semblage presented here is confirmed bythe seven Attic, black-glazed sherds. Prof.Susan Rotroff, University of Washington,has examined drawings, descriptions andphotos of these pieces. She dates six ofthem to the late fourth century BC and one(Fig. 21) to the first half of the third centuryBC, assuming that they are Attic or followthe Attic development. All of the fragmentsmay come from bowls with out-turned rim,a type commonly found in the Hellenisticlayers at the Athenian Agora (25). The rimsillustrated on Figures 20 and 23 are charac-terised by a straight upper wall and an out-wardly thickened rim. These sherds have aclose parallel in Agora XXIX Fig. 866,which is given a date from 325 BC to 300BC. The reserved band between the foot

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and the lower body seen on Figures 17 and22 is also characteristic for bowls from thelater fourth century BC (26). The flaringrim illustrated on Figure 21 from Qala’atal-Bahrain has a good parallel in AgoraXXIX Fig. 907, which belongs in the secondquarter of the third century BC. The pal-mettes and rouletting seen on Figures 17,18, 19 and 22 are not chronologically sig-nificant since these features are commonuntil c. 125 BC (27). This argues for a dateof the pit deposit to the period from c. 325BC to 275 BC.

The earliest Tylos gravesWith the presentation of the assemblagedescribed above the beginning of the Tylosperiod can be seen more clearly and itwould be of interest to see if it might bepossible to date any graves to this period.The earliest graves belonging to ‘The EarlyTylos – Failaka Horizon’ in the sequencepublished by A. Herling and J.-F. Salleswere given a date from c. 300–100 BC, butnone of the vessels found in these gravescan be compared to the material publishedin this article.

An investigation was carried out in May2001 in the main storeroom at the BahrainNational Museum (28), where hundreds ofvessels from excavated Tylos graves arestored (29). This confirmed that the earliestvessels from the Tylos graves are the onesillustrated in A. Herling and J.-F. Salles’ se-quence in ‘The early Tylos – Failaka Hor-izon’. Some of the typical types from thegraves do not find any parallels in the pub-lished material from the settlements, butothers do. A crudely made, common warebowl with incurving rim and a simple,straight walled bowl (30) and the bowl infine common ware with a pointed, slightlyeverted rim with a gently marked shoulder(31) find their closest parallels in Period Vbat Qala’at al-Bahrain, which is dated to the

S. F. ANDERSEN

second century BC (32). No finds from theTylos burials could be assigned to PeriodVa1 or Period Va2.

Only a few bathtub and pot burialsdocument any specific burial customs inthe Achaemenian period in Bahrain, butthese burials are very rare and seem onlyto represent a minor segment of the society(33). The majority of the population mayonly have received modest burial withoutany splendour and thus be difficult for usto detect. The absence of excavated gravesfrom the earliest Tylos period may be ex-plained by a continuation of the simpleburial type from the Achaemenian periodinto the earliest Tylos period. It thereforeseems likely that the dating of the earliestknown Tylos burials should be lowerednearly one hundred years to the beginningof period Vb or c. 200 BC.

ConclusionThe pottery assemblage presented abovedates to the earliest Tylos period, ie. PeriodVa1, and documents a change in potteryfashion in the period after the Greek con-quest of the Achaemenian Empire. Thischange does not seem to be a result of along-term relationship, but seems to havehappened quickly, probably as a result oflocal potters adopting the new shapesbrought to the Gulf by Greek soldiers orsettlers. However, new shapes such as thefish plate and the small bowl with in-curving rim do not indicate any changes inhabits, since small, open bowls were alsovery common in the Achaemenian Period.In period Vb, new designs like the lagynoi(34) and kantharoi (35) become part of table-ware pottery and grave goods in Bahrain.This indicates that specific wine-drinkingvessels became part of everyday life for amajor part of the society at this time, as inthe Greek world. Together with the changein burial customs where cist graves are in-

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troduced as the preferred manner of burialfor the majority of the population, this indi-cates a major cultural change in Bahrainduring the late fourth and third centuriesBC. We do not yet have direct evidence forthe causes of these changes – unlike Failakawhere the ‘Ikaros inscription’ documentsthat Failaka was part of the Seleucid Em-pire – but the Greek features in the pottteryfrom period Va and Vb and in the burialcustoms argue for close relations betweenBahrain and the Seleucid Empire duringthe third century BC.

References1. Bibby TG. Looking for Dilmun. New York: Knopf,

1969: 112.2. Bibby TG. Bahrains oldtidshovedstad gennem

4000 år. Kuml 1957: 1958: 149; Bibby TG. Prelimi-nary Survey in East Arabia 1968. Copenhagen:JASP, 12: 1973: 16.

3. Hannestad L. Ikaros – The Hellenistic Settlementvolume 2, The Hellenistic Pottery. Aarhus: JASP, 16/2: 1983: 78.

4. Gachet J. Un habitat du IIe siecle av. J.-C. dans laForteresse de Failaka. FFF 1986–1988: 167.

5. Hannestad L. Chronology of the hellenistic for-tress on Failaka. Topoi 4/2: 1994: 588.

6. Herling A & Salles J-F. Hellenistic cemeteries inBahrain. In: Finkbeiner U, ed. Materialien zur Ar-chäologie der Seleukiden- und Partherzeit im südlichenBabylonien und im Golfgebiet. Tübingen: Wasmuth,1993: 161–182 (hereafter MASP).

7. Larsen CE. Life and Land Use on the Bahrain Islands.The Geoarcheology of an Ancient Society, Chicago:Univ. of Chicago Press, 1983.

8. Lombard P & Kervran M, Les niveaux ‘Hellenis-tiques’ du Tell de Qal’at al-Bahrain. Donnees pre-liminaires. MASP: 127–160.

9. Højlund F & Andersen HH. Qala’at al-Bahrain,volume 1 – The Northern City Wall and the IslamicFortress. Aarhus: JASP, 30/1: 1994; Højlund F &Andersen HH, Qala’at al-Bahrain, volume 2 – TheCentral Monumental Buildings. Aarhus: JASP, 30/2.

10. Højlund & Andersen, Qala’at 1: 259.11. Højlund & Andersen, Qala’at 1: 297f.12. Andersen SF. An investigation of the pottery from the

period: c. 300 BC to c. 600 AD from the Danish exca-vations at Qala’at al-Bahrain. Unpub. MA thesis,Aarhus University, 2001.

13. Højlund & Andersen, Qala’at 1: Fig. 3.


14. Andersen SF. The Sasanian remains in Bahrain.Unpub. paper presented at the Seminar for Ar-abian Studies, Edinburgh, 2001.

15. Lecomte O. Ed-Dur, les occupations des 3e et 4es. ap. J.-C.: Contexte des trouvailles et materiel di-agnostique. MASP: 195–217.

16. Højlund & Andersen, Qala’at 2: 213ff.17. Højlund & Andersen, Qala’at 1: Fig. 1099.18. Hannestad, Ikaros 2.2: Cat. Fig. 214 and Ikaros vol

2.1: 32.19. Højlund & Andersen, Qala’at 1: Figs. 1124–1128.20. Hannestad, Ikaros 2.2: Cat. Fig. 199 and Højlund &

Andersen, Qala’at 1: Fig. 1399.21. Højlund & Andersen, Qala’at 1: Fig. 1262.22. Potts DT. The Sequence and Chronology of Thaj.

MASP: 87–110, Fig. 9:1:7.23. Højlund & Andersen, Qala’at 1: Figs. 1448–1450.24. Hannestad, Ikaros 2.2: Cat. Fig. 628.25. Rotroff S. The Athenian Agora, Volume XXIX, Hell-

enistic Pottery, Athenian and imported wheelmadeTable Ware and Related Material. Princeton:American School of Classical Studies at Athens,1997: 156.

26. Rotroff, The Athenian Agora, XXIX: 157.27. Rotroff, The Athenian Agora, XXIX: 157.28. Conducted by the author in co-operation with

Mustafa Ibrahim by kind permission of Khalid Al-Sindi, Bahrain National Museum.

29. The Tylos burials are described in: Herling A.

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Necropoles et coutumes funeraires a l’epoque deTylos. In: Lombard P, ed. Bahrain, la civilisation desdeux mers. Paris: Institut du monde arabe, 1999:150–155.

30. Herling & Salles, Hellenistic cemeteries: 169, Figs.2.8 and 3.18; Højlund & Andersen, Qala’at 1: Figs.1444–1447; Bernard V, Gachet J & Salles J.-F. Apos-tilles en marge de la ceramique des Etates IV et V.FFF 1986–1988: 269, Figs. 10.187 and 192.

31. Højlund & Andersen, Qala’at 1: Figs. 1448–1450.32. Højlund & Andersen, Qala’at 1: 299.33. Højlund & Andersen, Qala’at 2: 159.34. Herling & Salles, Hellenistic cemeteries: 171, Fig.

4.22.35. Højlund & Andersen, Qala’at 1: 268, Fig. 1462;

Hannestad, Ikaros 2.2: Cat. Figs. 189–192.

Address:Søren Fredslund AndersenDepartment of Classical ArchaeologyUniversity of AarhusDK-8000 Aarhus CDenmark

Moesgaard MuseumDK-8270 HøjbjergDenmarksfredslund/hotmail.com

the chronology of the earliest tylos period on bahrain

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