Museums, Bahrain

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A rather elegant museum, Beit al-Quran was recently built in the traditional Bahraini religious architecture to house an amazing and extremely rare collection of ancient Qurans (Islam's holy book) dating as far back as the 7th century AD. Throughout Islamic history, Qurans became a form artistic expression with beautiful calligraphy and colourful drawings. The museum is very nicely laid out and walks the visitor through the development of the Quran, its art, and Arabic calligraphy over time and across the various dominant Islamic empires. The museum is somewhat small and can be seen in less than an hour, but it is very educational and well worth a visit.

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The museum has an ethnographic section, a traditional arts section, a section on Tylos (Greek settlement of the Alexander the Great time) a collection of corans, and I may forget other things; ah a section on traditional fishing and pearl fishing and pearl jewellery. In the basement is a natural history section, which, if not as rich as the ones in the European capitals displays some local specimen you may not find elsewhere (Oryx, dammam, some local birds, etc. . . )
The VIP salon.
When there I looked in the bookshop and nearby followed two nice looking local ladies and they invited me to have a look at the VIP lounge here; modern design with delmonite artefacts reproductions; why not, it looks full of good taste and was a relaxing place for the 5 minutes I was allowed to stay there. The reproduction of the seals at the back is wonderful.

The museum archaeologist reconstructed a grave from the "grave fields" found on the Bahrain Island; it is not clear whether this is a Delmonite grave, but it is a very old one, according to the pottery style.

A big number of stone seals has been found in the temples and graves; their use is not clear, but they probably were used to mark the copper ingots; some of them display very fine artistic patterns (see picture of the brochure).

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This bull's head is the symbol of the Delmon civilisation; it has been found in the Barbar temple in the outskirts of Manama; this sculpture demonstrates the skills of the delmonite artists, who mastered metal melting and use of lost wax cast technique; the Delmon were traders who transported metallic ore (copper mainly) from Oman mountains to Bahrain; the ore was molten there and transported to the Babylonian area. The Delmon civilisation began to disappear when copper ore was discovered in Cyprus (Cyprus = cupressus= copper, cyprus = copper island) in middle-upper Bronze Age and the old Greek civilisations began to develop.

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When visiting the museum, there was a temporary exhibition of modern wood carvings and sculptures; the museum promotes young Arab artists from the Gulf and abroad. This strange carving reminds Breughel's Tower of Babel and also represents the Babel tower, and possibly Dilmun already existed at the same time as Babel ((before Babylon).

Other wood carvings and furniture
The young Arab artists are encouraged by this museum and these wooden sculptures are representative of the creativity of the artists displayed;

These three persons are the "discoverers" of the old Bahrain civilisations; discoverers between " "because the grave plunderers knew well since ages that the graves contained sometimes precious artefacts. In the fifties the Danish archaeologist Peter Glob began research in Bahrain and was helped by the local ruler at the time; very soon after Geoff Bibby joined him and they discovered the Dilmun civilisation which is now better known and is a piece of the puzzle of the early middle east civilisations.

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This foot bears drawings and writing of cuneiform type; (cuneiform, from cunea #nail). The old Delmon civilisation knew writing and was probably very close to the Mesopotamian civilisation centres. The museum displays a number of those artefacts witnessing of the old civilisations which were present in Bahrain. The museum displays also reconstitutions of old houses or graves where these artefacts have been found.