BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Bronze Age Temple Discovered in Kuwait

An important temple from the kingdom of Dilmun

A 4,000-year-old temple on the island of Failaka in Kuwait. Courtesy The National Council for Culture, Arts, and Literature, Kuwait.

A joint Kuwaiti-Danish excavation has uncovered a 4,000-year-old temple on the island of Failaka in Kuwait. Belonging to the ancient kingdom of Dilmun, the temple is yet another archaeological find highlighting the importance of this kingdom and its role as an intermediary between Mesopotamia, Oman, and the Indus Valley.

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Worshiping in Ancient Dilmun

Measuring roughly 36 by 36 feet and found alongside a large administrative structure, the building is the second temple discovered on the small island. One wall of the temple had previously been identified through earlier excavations, but with the full temple uncovered, the excavators also discovered numerous stamps seals and pottery fragments that confirmed it belonged to the Dilmun civilization, which occupied much of the Persian Gulf from the late fourth to first millennium BCE.

Although further excavations are needed, the archaeologists hope the discoveries will shed new light on the region’s religious and cultural practices, as well as the ancient history of Kuwait. Stephen Larsen, head of the Danish delegation, emphasized that the temple’s layout holds clues about religious practices during the early Dilmun period, and features altars that would have had ritual and ceremonial significance. The presence of two temples and an administrative building also proves that the small island served as an important religious and administrative center for the kingdom of Dilmun in the early second millennium.

The kingdom of Dilmun held strategic control over the ocean trade routes that connected Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. Dilmun, which encompassed modern Kuwait, eastern Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, had much in common with Mesopotamia, its northern neighbor, and spoke a dialect of Akkadian, although it had its own unique pantheon. At times, Dilmun was also directly controlled by Mesopotamian kingdoms and empires.

Dilmun plays a significant role in a number of Mesopotamian myths. In flood myths, the region is the eternal home of Utnapishtim, the Mesopotamian Noah. And in some myths, it is even the location where the creation of the world took place.

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