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Bahrain: No.13 One dinar
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First issued — March 1993.
Size — 143 mm x 71.5 mm.
Signature — Sheikh Khalifah bin Sulman al Khalifah.
Watermark — The head of an oryx.
Security thread — Narrow windowed thread.
Printer — Thomas de la Rue and Company.
Illustration — A Dilmun seal (see the description for the back of this note).
Back
Illustration — The headquarters of the Bahrain Monetary Agency. In the panel to the right of the illustration are four Dilmun seals, similar to that found on the front of the note. These four seals are amongst many that had their likeness included on the doors of the British Bank of the Middle East in Manama – For many years archaeologists and historians had wandered about references to ‘Dilmun’ in ancient texts. Dilmun is mentioned in the mythical text of ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’ and it is the home of the survivor of the in the Sumerian legend of Ziusudra, which recounts the story of a great deluge. There are however, many more references to Dilmun in non-mythical texts from Ur, Babylon and Assyria. Following excavations in Bahrain in recent times, it has become apparent that Bahrain was in fact Dilmun.
One of the features which helped to identify Bahrain as the site of Dilmun was the discovery of many round steatite (soap-stone) seals. These round seals had been found in very limited numbers in Mesopotamia and Pakistan, but were different to the seals generally used in these areas—square in the Indus valley and cylindrical in Mesopotamia. In one of the major archaeological sites at Barbar, on the northern coast of Bahrain, a number of seals of the same type were discovered. That they were the product of Dilmun, was confirmed by the discovery of a seal-maker’s shop in 1959, along with an unfinished seal.
The seals are presumed to have been impressed onto wet clay tabs that sealed jars of goods. The seals then dried and remained intact until the jars were opened. A seal is illustrated on the front of the 1-dinar note of the third series, and four seals are illustrated on the back of the same note. The seal on the front contains an image of two men, a palm tree, a bird and a gazelle. The seals have become in some respects an emblematic identifier for Bahrain and can be found in some decorations on the island. The main doors to the British Bank of the Middle East in Manama have a series of enlarged seals carved into them.