FOUR rare stone fragments found in Bahrain that shed light on one of the oldest civilisations in the world have been added to Unesco’s ‘Memory of the World’ registry.
The ‘Cuneiform Inscriptions of the Kings of Dilmun on Stone Vessels (circa 1700 BCE)’ features pieces unearthed at two Unesco‑listed locations – the Dilmun Burial Mounds in A’ali and Qal’at Al Bahrain.
“This listing constitutes international recognition of the value of these exceptional historical findings and highlights Bahrain’s pivotal role in human history,” the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities (Baca) said in a statement yesterday.
“The importance of these inscriptions stems from their documentation of the existence of a royal dynasty that ruled Dilmun in the second millennium BC.
“They also reveal a crucial development in the use of cuneiform writing in the southern Fertile Crescent, helping to paint a clearer picture of one of the oldest civilisations in human history.”
Carved in steatite and chlorite nearly four millennia ago, the fragments once formed ceremonial vessels used inside a royal palace and possibly during official burial rites.
The cuneiform inscriptions read, ‘Palace of Yagli El, son of Ri’mum, servant of Inzak of Akkarum’.
It is likely that the tomb in which these were found was Yagli-El’s burial place.
Textual analysis and radiocarbon dating link the ruler to an Amorite dynasty that governed Dilmun during the late Bronze Age and maintained political and cultural ties with Mesopotamia.
Scholars consider the artefacts the earliest secure evidence of a royal house in Bahrain and a pivotal stage in the spread of cuneiform writing to the southern Gulf.
According to radiocarbon dating results, these vessels were used in the royal palace shortly before Yagli El’s burial, supporting the hypothesis that they were later transferred to the burial site as part of funerary rituals.
Dilmun appears frequently in Sumerian and Akkadian literature as a radiant, water‑rich land of trade and immortality, portrayed in myths such as ‘Enki and Ninhursag’ and passages of the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’.
Cuneiform administrative tablets document long‑distance traffic in copper, timber, pearls and dates. For much of the 20th century, Dilmun’s location remained a scholarly mystery until Danish excavations in the 1950s confirmed Bahrain as its centre.
Today, archaeological research indicates that Dilmun’s influence stretched from northern Gulf islands to the peninsula’s western edge, underscoring the region’s historical role as a conduit between ancient Near‑Eastern cultures.
According to Baca, the addition of the cuneiform pieces affirms ‘Bahrain’s pivotal position in human history and enrich our understanding of early statecraft in the Gulf’.
Unesco launched the ‘Memory of the World’ programme in 1992 to safeguard documentary heritage threatened by neglect, conflict and environmental decay.
Items accepted onto the register are deemed of outstanding universal value and the programme supports preservation, digitisation and public access initiatives while fostering international co-operation to protect manuscripts, archives and audiovisual records.
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