Dilmun (Sumerian Bahrain) Dilmun or Telmun was a civilization in ancient Bahrain . Dilmun was an important trading centre which at the height of its power controlled the Persian Gulf trading routes. The Sumerians regarded Dilmun as holy land. Although the central location of Dilmun is unclear, the scholarly consensus is that Dilmun encompassed Bahrain, Kuwait and the coastal regions of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Dilmun was mentioned by Mesopotamian civilizations as a trade partner, a source of the metal copper, and an entrepôt of the Mesopotamia-to-Indus Valley Civilization trade route. Dilmun is regarded as one of the oldest ancient civilizations in the Middle East. The Sumerians described Dilmun as a paradise garden in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Sumerian tale of the garden paradise of Dilmun may have been an inspiration for the Garden of Eden story. Dilmun and mythology Dilmun, sometimes described as "the place where the sun rises" and "the Land of the Living", is the scene of some versions of the Sumerian creation myth, and the place where the deified Sumerian hero of the flood, Utnapishtim (Ziusudra), was taken by the gods to live forever. Thorkild Jacobsen's translation of the Eridu Genesis calls it "Mount Dilmun"which he locates as a "faraway, half-mythical place". Dilmun is also described in the epic story of Enki and Ninhursag as the site at which the Creation occurred. The later Babylonian Enuma Elish, speaks of the creation site as the place where the mixture of salt water, personified as Tiamat met and mingled with the fresh water of Abzu. Bahrein in Arabic means "the twin waters", where the fresh water of theArabian aquifer mingles with the salt waters of the Persian Gulf. The promise of Enki to Ninhursag, the Earth Mother: For Dilmun, the land of my lady's heart, I will create long waterways, rivers and canals, whereby water will flow to quench the thirst of all beings and bring abundance to all that lives. Ninlil, the Sumerian goddess of air and south wind had her home in Dilmun. It is also featured in the Epic of Gilgamesh. However, in the early epic "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta", the main events, which center on Enmerkar's construction of the ziggurats in Uruk and Eridu, are described as taking place in a world "before Dilmun had yet been settled". It is also noted that Gilgamesh had to pass through Mount Mashu to reach Dilmun in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is usually identified with the whole of the parallel Lebanon andAnti-Lebanon ranges, with the narrow gap between these mountains constituting the tunnel. Others believe Mount Mashu was one of two ("twin") mountains that held up the sky at the eastern and western extremities of the world. The Sumerian versions of the Gilgamesh epic demonstrate that the earlier versions of the myth sited the Cedar Mountain to the east, in the direction of the rising of Utu, the Sumerian sun god.

• published: 11 Sep 2014
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