Dr. Steffen Laursen

And that was a huge territorial state with an enormously well-organized infrastructure.

And they had these large ships, the Magalgal.

And they could go probably as far as Gujarat in India.

But around 2004 BC, the city of Ur is sacked by an attacking army from Susiana in western Iran.

And this empire or this territorial state collapses.

And with it, this trade fleet disappears.

And from that time, we don't hear of ships going that far again.

So probably the ships that were built after that point were smaller and had a shorter range.

So they could only reach as far as Bahrain.

And that's actually when we can see at the same moment that Dilmun, you know, really starts to prosper.

And this Dilmun kingdom suddenly emerges.

So they were able to control the trade suddenly and become the central middleman.

But before that, people were sailing all the way.

Yeah, you can say it sort of emerged as a kind of Singapore of the Bronze Age at some point there.

And in part, they were, of course, they were clever, and they were able to exploit a vacuum that emerged after this collapse of the U3 state's trade empire and their trade fleet.

Yeah, and we see it as a bit of a collapse in the other places, but it was probably very short-lived.

And everybody adjusted to this new situation, and everybody started prospering for it in their own way.

I think it will be a surprise to many, but if we look at the city of Dilmun, the site is today called Kaladal Bahrain, because the Portuguese, they decided to build a huge fortification right on top of it in the 15th century.

But it would be a surprise to many that this was actually a 25-hectare city with a stone-built city wall with towers going all the way around it.

And when you entered the city, you would go through large double-leaf city gates.