realm. Third, a text of Amar Sin Year 1 , 13 or 14 years later than Shulgi’s dispatch of
troops, refers to a governor (ensi) of Magan (D.T. Potts 1990 : 144 ).
This phase of direct Mesopotamian rule may relate to a recently identified site of the
Ur III period on the island of Failaka, Kuwait, at the base of the sequence of mound
F 6 (Højlund 2010 ). Failaka, approximately 260 km to the southeast of Ur in a direct
line (probably not more than a week’s sail), was to become a major trading station of
the Dilmun civilisation in the Isin-Larsa period. The newly discovered levels display a
purely Mesopotamian material culture. One has to ask whether this site represents an
outpost of the Ur III empire, established to maintain control over the peoples and
trading networks of the Gulf. This would reconcile the lack of any mention of trade
with Dilmun in the texts: it was not mentioned because Dilmun was within the
borders of the Ur III kingdom for much of its duration.
CONCLUSIONS: ANOTHER SIDE TO THE URUK EXPANSION?
The chief aim of this chapter has been to highlight the emerging evidence that con-
tacts between Mesopotamia and the Gulf became significant at an earlier date than
previously believed, during the Uruk period, and that these contacts may have been
accompanied by the movement of people from Mesopotamia to eastern Arabia, on a
scale greater than the travels of a few itinerant merchants. It has been previously
proposed that ‘at least some rerouting’ of the exchange system towards the Gulf took
place during the Jamdat Nasr period (Nissen 2001 : 174 ), but the significance and
timing of the shift has been underestimated. The appearance of Dilmun in the archaic
texts and the first shipping of Omani copper to southern Mesopotamia can be
connected to the later phases of the Uruk Expansion, while even earlier connections
with the Uruk world are suggested by the presence of Omani copper in Middle and
potentially Early Uruk contexts in Mesopotamia.
A change in the scale and intensity of interactions is notable in the Jamdat Nasr period,
particularly in the Lower Gulf region, connected to local demographic developments
which enabled large-scale production of copper. Rapid population expansion occurred,
precipitated both by climatic amelioration and the introduction of plant cultivars from
Mesopotamia or Iran, perhaps stimulated by industrial specialisation in the production
and traffic of copper (D. Potts 1994 : 239 ; Cleuziou and Méry 2002 a: 201 ).
It was suggested decades ago that metal prospectors from Mesopotamia may have
colonised the eastern regions of Arabia (During Caspers 1971 ), but as yet there is no
decisive evidence of a significant movement of Mesopotamian people to Arabia or
between the two regions, and no site that can clearly be identified as a colony. The
architecture of HD- 6 nonetheless demands explanation. Nothing should be ruled out,
given our very sketchy knowledge of the nature of both interregional contacts and local
settlement during the late fourth and early third millennium. In European archaeology,
theories of demic diffusion of new technologies and strategies (e.g. agriculture or
metalworking) have enjoyed a renaissance, as new genetic and stable isotope studies
show movements of people associated with such behaviours at critical transformative
stages of history and prehistory (Budd et al. 2004 ; Evans et al. 2006 ; Balaresque et al.
2010 ; King and Underhill 2002 ). It is therefore not an outlandish suggestion that
numerically significant groups of Mesopotamian natives could have travelled to and
settled in the Gulf area and even eastern Oman, merely a few weeks away by boat.
–– Robert Carter ––