The Ancient Saar Project: London-Bahrain Archaeological Expedition (updated 2017)

[First posted in AWOL 22 September 2014, updated 5 July 2017]

The Ancient Saar Project: London-Bahrain Archaeological Expedition

Robert C Killick, 2007 (updated 2017)

The excavations at Saar, Bahrain, took place between 1990 and 1999. The work was undertaken by the London-Bahrain Archaeological Expedition which was formed specifically for the purpose. The UK academic supporter of the project was the Institute of Archaeology, University College, London. In Bahrain, the Expedition received the patronage of the Amir, the late Shaikh Isa bin Sulman Al-Khalifa. The project was funded mainly by the business community in Bahrain, as well as by the British Academy and other academic funding bodies (for a full list, see Appendix 1 in Saar Volume 3). The directors were Robert Killick, Jane Moon, and Harriet Crawford (for the period 1990-5).

The site of Saar had been previously excavated by a Jordanian expedition (results unpublished) and it was clear from that work that the settlement was inhabited for part of the Early Dilmun period (late third and early second millennia BC) and then abandoned. This corresponds to the period of Bahrain's involvement in Arabian Gulf trade when commodities were shipped through Bahrain, from Oman and the Indus, on their way to the cities of southern Babylonia, and vice versa. A procedure documented, if patchily, in the cuneiform records of the time.

Nearly all previous archaeological work on this period prior to the excavation of Saar has focused on the extensive burial mounds and on isolated temples. The importance of Saar, therefore, resides in the fact that it is the first (and currently only) Early Dilmun settlement to have been investigated in any detail. This importance has been recognised by the Government of Bahrain which has placed the 'Saar Heritage Park' on the Tentative World Heritage List.

The Saar Settlement

The settlement itself is located on a small but prominent eastern outcrop of a limestone ridge which provides about the only natural elevation in the northern part of Bahrain. Immediately west of the settlement, and on the highest part of the ridge, is the Saar burial field, while to the south there are two cemetery complexes of interconnected graves. The settlement is spread over an estimated area of between 15,000 and 23,000 sq m, of which 7,500 sq m was excavated by the end of the project. Saar is a well laid out settlement with a main street running up from the southeastern outskirts; a temple in the centre at the crossroads of the settlement; and two- and three-roomed buildings, constructed in rows (e.g. Block A) with standard room plans and suites of domestic installations. Over 80 buildings, mainly houses, were investigated by the Expedition, as well as a well and a gypsum kiln. All these are described in detail in Saar Report 3. On the basis of pottery comparisons, the duration of the settlement is currently estimated to be about 250 years, from 2100 to 1850 BC approximately. 

• Introduction
• Overview
• Downloads
• Metadata
• Usage Statistics

Reports:

	Saar Excavation Report 1 The Dilmun Temple at Saar edited by Harriet Crawford, Robert Killick, and Jane Moon
	Full Report	PDF	11 Mb
	Saar Excavation Report 2 Early Dilmun Seals from Saar, fragments of art and administration by Harriet Crawford
	Full Report	PDF	6 Mb
	Saar Excavation Report 3 The Early Dilmun Settlement at Saar   by Robert Killick and Jane Moon
	Full Report	PDF	45 Mb

Database Documentation:

Database Documentation	PDF	54 Kb
Entity Relationship Diagram	JPG	48 Kb

Database Tables:

ARCHITECTS PLANS	CSV	12 Kb
Bldg codes	CSV	1 Kb
Bldg measurements	CSV	4 Kb
Block levels	CSV	6 Kb
CONTEXTS	CSV	730 Kb
DRAWINGS	CSV	27 Kb
FILE LIST	CSV	5 Kb
GRAVES	CSV	4 Kb
FINDS	CSV	2.08 Mb
Installation codes	CSV	1 Kb
Pottery periods	CSV	2 Kb
PHOTOGRAPHS	CSV	520 Kb
Pot versus strat	CSV	5 Kb
Room types	CSV	1 Kb
SAMPLING	CSV	53 Kb
SECTIONS	CSV	20 Kb
Site period	CSV	1 Kb
SITE SUPERVISORS PLANS	CSV	45 Kb

JPG Images:

	Bahrain map Early Dilmun sites in Bahrain	JPG	53 Kb
	Cemeteries The Northern Burial Complex	JPG	266 Kb
	Double chamber burials Two-tier Early Dilmun burials along the southwestern edge of the Saar mound-field	JPG	267 Kb
	Honeycomb cemetery Part of the Southern Burial Complex	JPG	313 Kb
	Middle East map Southwestern Asia	JPG	153 Kb
	Saar area map Archaeological remains in the Saar area	JPG	155 Kb
	Settlement limits Location and extent of the Saar settlement	JPG	118 Kb
	Site aerial The Early Dilmun settlement at Saar from the air, taken in 1993 (S)	JPG	272 Kb
	Site and eastwards The plain to the east of the settlement (E)	JPG	350 Kb