Qal'at al-Bahrain

Qal'at al-Bahrain, “the fort of Bahrain”, stands on the north coast of the main island of Bahrain, on top of a tell, an artificial mound built up from the remains of successive settlements. People have lived on this spot since about 2300 BCE, and for much of the Bronze Age it was a capital of Dilmun, a trading civilisation that linked Mesopotamia with the Indus valley and is mentioned in Sumerian texts. UNESCO inscribed the site, under the name Qal'at al-Bahrain, Ancient Harbour and Capital of Dilmun, in 2005.

Excavations, begun by Danish archaeologists in the 1950s, have cut down through the layers of the mound, exposing walls of Dilmun houses and public buildings, a later Hellenistic-period level, and the remains of an early Islamic fort. The deep trenches let visitors see how the mound grew.

Crowning the site is the fort that gives it its name, built in its present form largely by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, when they controlled the Gulf's trade from Hormuz, and later used by Persian and local rulers. Its stone walls, bastions and moat face the sea. A site museum displays finds from the excavations, and in the evening the fort is lit, standing over the palms and shallow water of the coast.