Stamp seals of the Dilmun type have kept their characteristic shape and boss decoration of three lines and four dotted circles for several 100 years. Although the carving of the shape of the seal and the design on the obverse normally reveal a confident experience, the cutting of the three lines on the reverse is generally irregular and clumsy. It is suggested that the former was in the hands of a professional seal carver, whereas the latter was carried out by the seal owner, perhaps as a sign of allegiance to the king.

Two amphoras found at burials outside the ancient city of Thaj, Saudi Arabia, bear inscriptions mentioning wine. The chemical analysis of the content of one of them confirms the presence of wine and more precisely as red wine. Contextual information from one of the graves suggests that wine was consumed as part of burial rituals. One inscription is in Aramaic and the other is in South Arabian cursive or zabur-in fact the first attestation for this particular script in the core region of the so-called Hasaitic writing culture. Complementing the recent discoveries of zabur inscriptions from Mleiha (Sharjah, UAE), this inscription buttresses our idea of the emergence of writing in East Arabia in the Hellenistic period.

In the first half of the second millennium, Tell F6 on Failaka Island was the location of two large public buildings (a temple and a production/storage facility) belonging to the Early Dilmun Culture. During excavation in 2018, an elevation in the north‐eastern margin of the tell proved to contain the remains of a 11.5 × 11.5 m platform. The nature of the building and its position in relation to the main temple indicate that it served as the platform for yet another—now razed—temple. Radiocarbon analysis dates its construction to the early second millennium BC and suggests that it was constructed contemporary with the adjacent main temple. The discovery further substantiates the general impression of a dramatic increase in investments in public buildings in this period of the Early Dilmun Culture.

High-resolution insight into parasitic infections and diet of past populations in Northern Europe and the Middle East (500 BC- 1700 AD) was obtained by pre-concentration of parasite eggs from ancient latrines and deposits followed by shotgun sequencing of DNA. Complementary profiling of parasite, vertebrate and plant DNA proved highly informative in the study of ancient health, human-animal interactions as well as animal and plant dietary components. Most prominent were finding of soil-borne parasites transmitted directly between humans, but also meat-borne parasites that require consumption of raw or undercooked fish and pork. The detection of parasites for which sheep, horse, dog, pig, and rodents serves as definitive hosts are clear markers of domestic and synanthropic animals living in closer proximity of the respective sites. Finally, the reconstruction of full mitochondrial parasite genomes from whipworm (Ascaris lumbricoides) and roundworm species (Trichuris trichiura and Trichuris muris) and estimates of haplotype frequencies elucidates the genetic diversity and provides insights into epidemiology and parasite biology.

A scalenohedral hematite pendant (presumably a pseudomorph after a calcite crystal), excavated on Bahrain (ancient Dilmun) in the Persian Gulf from layers dated to c.1800 bc, was investigated using X-ray computed microtomography. The internal porosity was studied in 3D, showing a preferential concentration of small pores in the central part, where carbonate remnants might still be present, and larger, flattened, elongated voids in the subsurface portion. Part of the scalenohedron can be described as an intergrowth of platy hematite crystals. Microtomography also yielded data on pore-size distribution. Considerations are given to the genetic model and the provenance of the hematite pendant.

The surface of the small island of Jiddah lying north-west of Bahrain is covered in traces of stone quarrying, but although the island probably supplied the limestone ashlars for the second-millennium BC Dilmun temples at Barbar, the sixteenth-century AD Bahrain Fort and other eminent buildings, no study has ever been made of the ancient quarry. Information from a geological report and a few photographs may, it is hoped, inspire new research.

The Kuwaiti-Danish 2009 excavations on Failaka produced new evidence for the dating of the Dilmun temple in Tell F6. The affinities of this temple to the Barbar temples in Bahrain are emphasised, whereas the hypothesis of a Syrian-inspired temple tower is questioned.

Studies of old aerial photographs of the Bahrain burial mound fields have revealed that a small number of both Early Type (c. 2200–2050 BC) and Late Type (c. 2050–1750 BC) mounds are encircled by an outer ring wall, apparently marking out the mound as belonging to an elite. Four of these mounds have been excavated, and the results are presented. The geological differences between the Early Type and the Late Type mound landscapes are discussed.

The dating of the Coastal Fortress at Qala'at al-Bahrain to the Islamic period has been maintained by the Danish excavators since the building was uncovered in 1955–57. The French excavators have argued for a considerably earlier date, in the Sasanian period. The problem with this dating is firstly, the lack of Sasanian finds on the alleged early floor of the fortress and secondly, the status of this floor which is known only from very small trenches and more likely belongs to a Late Parthian architectural phase predating the fortress.

In 2004 excavations at the Barbar Temple dating to c. 2000 BC established that the function of the southeastern subterranean channel connected to the temple pool was to supply the pool with water and not to divert water away from the pool. North and west of the temple the oval terrace wall of its third phase was located. In the centre of the Northeast Temple the remains of a shaft-stairway leading down to a well-chamber was uncovered and shown to be furnished with two subterranean channels leading water into the chamber. South of the Northeast Temple a house with late pottery was excavated. Two stamp seals and two seal-impressed tokens were found.

It will be argued in this article that the specific shape of the stamp seals used around 2000 BC in eastern Arabia (ancient Dilmun) was charged with a meaning that can be retrieved when viewed within a culturally and historically specific situation (1).

Four stone blocks decorated with T‐shaped grooves indicate the presence of a Mesopotamian‐style temple in the tell of Qala'at al‐Bahrain on the north coast of the island of Bahrain.