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Joining The Dots
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Tilmun
Dilmun *
Dilmun (Tilmun) is a legendary island paradise referred to in the mythology of Sumeria. Today, Bahrain is generally believed to harbour the location of this renowned city.
However, in 1983, Daniel Potts published a paper(c) which does not challenge the prevailing identification, but instead suggested that it is necessary “to both broaden and restrict the identification of Dilmun, according to the particular time in history to which one is referring.” He traces the use of the name in Mesopotamian texts as early as 3000 BC. He contends that Dilmun was applied to eastern Arabia by Early Dynastic Sumerians and that later power shifted to Bahrain with the name, Dilmun, which possibly applied to the island as well as part of mainland Arabia. Then around 2000 BC, the use of the appellation appears to have been extended to include the island of Failaka, off Kuwait. Potts suggests that subsequently Failaka may have replaced Bahrain as the centre of Dilmun.
Thirty years ago George Michanowsky proposed[282] that the Sumerian inscription NI-DUK-KI was the equivalent of the Akkadian ‘Dilmun’ and that it probably referred to Bahrain. He went further and identified Dilmun as Atlantis, which he contended was inundated when sea levels rose as a consequence of global warming caused by a supernova that was noted by the Sumerians 7,000 years ago.
However, in 2001 Radek Brychta published a book[203] that refutes this. Instead, he identifies Dilmun with the Indus civilisation city of Dholavira and proceeds to argue cogently for its acceptance as the original inspiration behind Plato’s Atlantis tale. He contends that the city declined at the end of the 3rd or beginning of the 2nd millennium BC as a result of natural catastrophes in the region. Brychta notes how flooding created swamps that impeded access to Dholavira reminiscent of Plato’s shoals preventing navigation where Atlantis had subsided. Brychta outlines the contacts between the Indus civilisation and Sumeria and between Sumeria and Egypt and proposes this as the route of the story of Dholavira’s demise, which eventually was related to Solon. Brachta’s book was published in the Czech Republic but extensive excerpts are available on the Internet(a) and well worth a viewing.
>In 2005 it was reported that a Saudi archaeologist, Nabiel Al Shaikh, drew attention to a temple in the Saar district of Bahrain where he claims a solar observatory still functions after a fashion. It seems that the sun no longer sets where it should and is off by around 10 degrees!(d) Al Shaikh suggested that this deviance might be the result of tectonic movement or ground erosion. Others might infer ‘pole shift’? For me, this is reminiscent of George Dodwell‘s work.<
Brachta’s theory is supported by Yashwant Koak, who is due to publish a book on his concept of Atlantis in India. Koak claims that investigations at Dholavira have shown a 92% match with Plato’s description of Atlantis.
The imaginative Zia Abbas also links Dilmun with Atlantis, but places it further east in Indonesia[001.28].
The Malagaybay website has an interesting illustrated article about Dilmun.(b)
(a) https://www.i-atlantis.com/enindex.htm (Offline)
(b) The Arabian Horizon – The Lost Lands: Dilmun | MalagaBay (archive.org)
(c) https://www.academia.edu/5789959/Potts_1983_-_Dilmun_Where_and_when?email_work_card=view-paper