The quest for the real Dilmun, the lost civilisation of Arabia, began when the author Geoffrey Bibby revisited Bahrain in order to explore the thousands of undated burial mounds scattered across the country. A brief season's digging was enough to establish the existence of a major civilisation dating from around 2300 BC. Thus began an undertaking to reveal the extent of Dilmun, a land which stretched beyond the confines of Bahrain, as far north as Kuwait and as far south as Saudi Arabia. In this classic tale of discovery, first published in 1969, renowned scholar Geoffrey Bibby tells his story of archaeological detective work with style and humour. Looking for Dilmun is re-issued here for a fresh generation of readers, and introduced by Dr Harriet Crawford, one of the leading archaeologists of the region.
Autorentext
Geoffrey Bibby studied Arabic at Cambridge, having decided in his teens to be a Middle Eastern archaeologist (the curriculum did not then include Oriental archaeology), and learned about the practical side of excavation while digging at Hadrian's Wall in the north of England. His first job in the Middle East was with the Iaq Petroleum Company, which sent him to Bahrain. Bibby died aged 83 in 2001.Harriet Crawford is an Honorary Visiting Professor at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London and Research Fellow at the McDonald Institute, Cambridge. She has excavated extensively in Iraq and the Gulf.