to 300 years. Any attempt to discern a narrative is therefore speculative, but the follow-
ing pattern is broadly accepted: during the ED III period trade was with Dilmun,
generally in goods which must have originated elsewhere, unless Dilmun still applied
to the whole Gulf. Magan, considered to refer to the Oman Peninsula and probably
also the adjacent portion of Iran, appears in the royal texts at the start of the Akkadian
period, and a small number of economic texts document trade with Dilmun and the
preparation of Dilmun-boats. By the Ur III period, Dilmun has disappeared entirely
from the economic texts, with Magan being the focus of trading activities in the Gulf.
A radical reorganisation took place after the demise of the Ur III state, whereby
Dilmun, based now in Bahrain and with a major outpost on Failaka Island, Kuwait,
monopolised Gulf trade and became the sole maritime trading partner of the southern
Mesopotamian cities, well into the Old Babylonian period.
For the ED III period, the texts indicate that Ur-Enki went to Dilmun himself to buy
the goods. He brought various amounts of copper, the highest single entry being 236
mina(approx. 100 kg) (Weeks 2003 : 15 ; Heimpel 1987 : 70 – 71 ; D.T. Potts 1990 : 182 ).
This is a relatively small amount, equivalent to around seventy bun-shaped ingots of
typical size, but it may not refer to his whole shipment. In related texts, smaller amounts
of copper are also listed as being brought by Ur-Enki from Dilmun, with one text listing
214 minabroken down into 72 minaof copper ‘of the barley’, 20 mina ‘of the cedar’,
96 mina‘of the unguent’ and 26 mina‘of the wheat’ (Heimpel 1987 : 70 – 81 , text 4 ).
These may be the direct returns from a shipment of barley, cedar, unguent and wheat
advanced for the trading expedition. In the reign of Urukagina, garments woven from
Dilmun-linen were provided for the decoration of cult statues (D.T. Potts 1990 : 183 ).
Dilmun maintained ties with northern Mesopotamia as well as the south in the
mid-third millennium. As early as c. 2500 BCthere are references to Dilmun copper and
Dilmun tin at Ebla, and Dilmun also occurs there as a toponym, and an element in
professional titles (Weeks 2003 : 15 ). A strong association between Dilmun and trade is
also suggested by the use of the ‘Dilmun-shekel’ at Ebla (D.T. Potts 1990 : 188 – 189 ;
D. Potts 1986 a: 391 – 392 ). Glyptic evidence from the Gulf points to well-established
and long-lasting contacts between the region and northern Mesopotamia during the
ED period and later in the third millennium. Apart from the seal impression from
Umm an-Nar island (c. 2500 – 2500 BC), which has its closest parallels with sites in Syria,
the iconography of late third millennium Persian Gulf seals has parallels with
Mesopotamian and specifically Syro-Anatolian glyptic (Peyronel 2008 : 237 , 240 ff., 247 ;
D.T. Potts 1990 : 113 ; Laursen 2010 : 98 – 99 , n. 2 ). Much later, in the Isin-Larsa period,
trade with Mari appears to have been direct and important, with royal attention being
directed towards caravans from Dilmun (D. Potts 1986 a: 392 – 395 ).
At this time (the ED III period), there is little evidence of occupation in Bahrain,
though the burial mounds in the Eastern Province indicate contact with Mesopotamia,
while some of the Al-Rufayah finds may belong to this period and the tellon Tarut
island remains unexcavated. There is a relative abundance of finds of this date in the
Oman Peninsula. Again, copper was likely the most important item of exchange, and
nearly half of the ED III items sampled by Begemann et al. bore the fingerprint of
Omani copper ( 23 out of 48 , i.e. 48 per cent) (Begemann et al. 2010 : tab. 5 ). The coastal
warehouse site of Umm an-Nar Island was active, and bears significant quantities of
Mesopotamian ceramics, one with a cylinder seal impression dated to the third quarter
of the millennium (Frifelt 1995 ; Potts and Pittman 2009 : 118 ). It is thought that copper
–– The Sumerians and the Gulf ––