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 For some, it was the biblical Garden of Eden . For others, it was the paradise that the ancients sa….. praises to as the Land of the Living or the Land of the Rising Sun .Bahrain is the Dilmun of the epic of Gilgamesh , an ancient Sumarian text wrtten 4,000 years ago .
The Dilmun civilisation was flourshing while the rest of the world was emerging from the la …… stages of the Ice Age . The desert of Bahrain Island is actually the biggest of more thousands of buri….. mounds and of temples to foundation of forts and an entire 4,000-years-old village .
Tucked in the emerald waters of the Arabian Gulf between Qatar and Saudi Arabia , Bahrain b….. came a key commercial center in ages past for the people of the region.
Merchants from Gree….. Mesopotamia and Sumeria to the north came to Bahrain to haggle with traders from India, Oman and the eastern African coasts to the south . Gold , pearls, spices and valuable han…..crafted wares were among coveted items brought to Bahrain .
The island gained an enviable position an Arabia for its fresh water and for the remarkable quality of this pearls,called "fish eyes" in ancient writrings .Among the peoples who scrapped over Bahrain or tried to dominate it were Sumarians , Persians , Greeks , Bedouins , Portuguese and Turs .
At the end of the 18th century , Ahmed Al-Fatih conquered the island and established the Al Khalifa dynasty whish continues to rule over the state of Bahrain today .
The present population of nearly 600,000 is mainly concentrated in the northern third of the island which is only 50 kilometres long and 16 kilometres wide about the size of Singapore in total surface area .
A third of the population is foreign , mainly hailing from other Arab countries but there are also Asians and expats from the West, most of whom have come here to work . Like a mirage, dozens of gleaming office buildings and luxury hotels dominate the skyline of Manama , the capital
Most of these modern edifices were constructed on land reclaimed from the sea . The surface area was increased by one-fifth thanks to land reclmation and its still growing.
In the face of dwindling oil reserve , the nation set itself on a course of industrial diversification which includes aluminium plants as well as ship-building and repair yards . Without seriously altering the old quarter of Manama, the new lands have helped make Bahrain an important banking and comercial center in the region .
But visitors wanting to escape from towering glass and steel have only to stroll a few metres to older districts . In modern Bahrain, the past is never very far away. Venerable residences, a thousand year-old relic of a mosque, forts, handicraft Villages and ancient ports remain, reminding Bahrainis and visitors alike of the history ,culture and heritage of this country a history spanning many millennia .
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