From the Ashes of Angels by Andrew Collins

Author:Andrew Collins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ancient Civilizations/Mythology
ISBN: 9781591439042
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 2011-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

The Search for Dilmun

Eden and Kharsag are not the only names by which the dwellingplace of the gods was known to the Sumerian and Akkadian cultures. There are also legends regarding an alleged mythical paradise known as Dilmun, or Tilmun. Here the god Enki and his wife were placed to institute 'a sinless age of complete happiness', where animals lived in peace and harmony, man had no rival and the god Enlil 'in one tongue gave praise'.58 It is also described as a pure, clean and 'bright' 'abode of the immortals', where death, disease and sorrow are unknown59 and some mortals have been given 'life like a god,60 – words reminiscent of the Airyana Vaejah, the realm of the immortals in Iranian myth and legend, and the Eden of Hebraic tradition.

Although there is good evidence to show that the name Dilmun was directly connected with an island state established at Bahrain in the Persian Gulf by the Akkadian king Sargon of Agade (2334–2279 BC),61 there is also clear evidence to suggest that it was a mythical realm in its own right. For example, there are references to 'the mountain of Dilmun, the place where the sun rises'.62 Since there is no obvious candidate for this 'mountain' in Bahrain, and in no way can this island be described as lying in the direction of the rising sun with respect to Iraq, then it seems certain that there were two Dilmuns.

So where had this mythological Dilmun been located?

A chance, unexpected discovery gave me an answer. Glancing through Mehrdad Izady's authoritative book The Kurds – A Concise Handbook, published in 1992, I happened to see references to a Kurdish tribal dynasty known as the Daylamites, who had established a number of powerful Middle Eastern kingdoms during the medieval period, the most famous being the Buwiiyhids (or Buyids) who reigned between AD 932 and 1062. Having succeeded in taking the important 'Abbiisid caliphate of Baghdad, the Daylamites had pushed forward to establish a Kurdish empire that stretched from Asia Minor to the shores of the Indian Ocean.63

Yet as Izady points out in his book: 'Confusion surrounds the origin of the Daylamites.'64 The main centre of their tribal dynasty had been the Elburz mountains, north of Tehran, where many scholars assume they rose to prominence. Yet if the tribe were to be traced back to pre-Islamic times, and in particular during the rule of the Parthian kings of Persia, between the third century BC and the third century AD, a different picture emerges. Their true ancestral homeland had been a region in north-western Kurdistan named Dilamân, or Daylamân, where their modern descendants, the Dimila (Zâzâ) Kurds still live.65

Dilamân? This sounded a lot like Dilmun.

Could they possibly be one and the same?

The ancient church archives of Christian Arbela (the modern Arbil) in Iraqi Kurdistan, confirm this same geographical location by recording that Beth Dailômâye, the 'land of the Daylamites', was located 'north of Sanjâr', around the headwaters of the Tigris.66 Furthermore, as Izady reveals: 'The Zoroastrian holy book, Bundahishn, (also) places Dilamân .

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