Gerrha

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Author: Laxman Burdak, IFS (R).

Gerrha was an ancient and renowned city within Eastern Arabia, on the west side of the Persian Gulf.[1] Uqair, an ancient fort has been suggested by some historians as the location of Gerrha.

Variants

Jat Gotras Namesake

Mention by Pliny

Pliny[2] mentions Arabia....We will now proceed to describe the coast after leaving Charax13, which was first explored by order of king Epiphanes. We first come to the place where the mouth of Euphrates formerly existed, the river Salsus14, and the Promontory of Chaldone15, from which spot, the sea along the coast, for an extent of fifty miles,16 bears more the aspect of a series of whirlpools than of ordinary sea; the river Achenus, and then a desert tract for a space of one hundred miles, until we come to the island of Ichara; the gulf of Capeus, on the shores of which dwell the Gaulopes and the Chateni, and then the gulf of Gerra17. Here we find the city of Gerra, five miles in circumference, with towers built of square blocks of salt.

13 Or rather, as Hardouin says, the shore opposite to Charax, and on the western bank of the river.

14 Called Core Boobian, a narrow salt-water channel, laid down for the first time in the East India Company's chart, and separating a large low island, off the mouth of the old bed of the Euphrates, from the mainland.

15 The great headland on the coast of Arabia, at the entrance of the bay of Doat-al-Kusma from the south, opposite to Pheleche Island.

16 This is the line of coast extending from the great headland last mentioned to the river Khadema, the ancient Achenus.

17 So called from the city of Arabia Felix, built on its shores. Strabo says of this city "The city of Gerra lies in a deep gulf, where Chaldæan exiles from Babylon inhabit a salt country, having houses built of salt, the walls of which, when they are wasted by the heat of the sun, are repaired by copious applications of sea-water." D'Anville first identified this place with the modern El Khatiff. Niebuhr finds its site on the modern Koneit of the Arabs, called "Gran" by the Persians; but Foster is of opinion that he discovered its ruins in the East India Company's Chart, situate where all the ancient authorities had placed it, at the end of the deep and narrow bay at the mouth of which are situated the islands of Bahrein. The gulf mentioned by Pliny is identified by Foster with that of Bahrein.

History

Prior to Gerrha, the area belonged to the Dilmun civilization, which was conquered by the Assyrian Empire in 709 BC. Gerrha was the center of an Arab kingdom from approximately 650 BC to circa AD 300. The kingdom was attacked by Antiochus III the Great in 205-204 BCE who succeeded in conquering modern Bahrain, although Gerrha seems to have survived in modern day Oman. It is currently unknown exactly when Gerrha fell, but the area in Eastern Arabia was invaded by the Iranian Sasanian Empire’s forces after AD 300.

Strabo described the city as having "fancy tools made out of gold and silver, such as the family gold, right [Qawa'im] triangles, and their drinking glass, let alone their large homes which have their doors, walls, roofs filled with colors, gold, silver, and holy stones" [3]

Uqair

Uqair (Arabic: عقير), alternatively spelled as al-'Uqair, Uqayr, and Ogair, is an ancient seaport city in the Al-Ahsa Governorate of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. It is the first seaport in the Persian Gulf and has been linked by some to the ancient city of Gerrha mentioned in Greek and Roman sources. The fort sits about 70 km northeast of the fertile oasis of Al-Hasa. At the ancient locale are the remains of a large fort that now marks the site of the same name. The current structure that exists is of unknown origin. It is not absolutely clear who built the fort that measures roughly 50 m (160 ft) on each side which consists of a stone rampart topped with mud brick.[4]

Location and etymology

To the Ancient Greeks, eastern Arabia (the present-day al-Hasa province) was known as Gerrha after its capital city. Gerrha was a Greek alteration of the Arabic Hajar (present-day Hofuf), the name of the largest city of ancient Bahrayn (Bahrayn was also known as Hagar or Gerrha in Hellenistic times).[5] Other English spellings are Hajar Hufuf, Hajar Hasa' Hajarah. Hagar (Gerrha) is not to be confused with the west Arabian Al-Hijr (al-Hijrah, ancient Hegra), the present-day Mada'in Saleh or al-Ula near the Red Sea. Al-Hamdani says the etymology of Hajar means ‘large village’ in the Himyaritic language (derived from Hakar).[6][7]

Another location suggested as Gerrha is Thaj which was built in the period of the Greeks, after the conquest of Alexander in 330 BC.

The city of Gerrha was taken by the Qarmatians at the end of the ninth century.[8] It was 2 miles (3.2 km) from the Persian Gulf near present-day Hofuf. The researcher Abdulkhaliq Al Janbi argued in his book that Gerrha was most likely the ancient city of Hajar, located in modern-day Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia.[9] Al-Janbi's theory is the most widely accepted one by modern scholars, although there are some difficulties with this argument, given that Al-Ahsa is 60 km inland and thus less likely to be the starting point for a trader's route, making a location within the archipelago of islands comprising the modern Kingdom of Bahrain, particularly the main island of Bahrain itself, another possibility.[10][11]

Origins of the inhabitants of Gerrha

Strabo described the inhabitants as Arabs, saying, "Because of their trade, the Gerrhans became the richest of the Arabs".[12] Other sources agree that the inhabitants were indeed Arab. Petroglyphs that were found in Greece were found to have been sent by a man from Gerrha called 'Taym Al Lat', an Arab name that means 'servant of Al-lat'.[13]


References

  1. ↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gerrha" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 11 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  2. ↑ Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 32
  3. ↑ Strabo, Geography, i6. 4. 19-20
  4. ↑ The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, Vol. II, D.T. Potts, P. 56.
  5. ↑ Marx, edited by Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai, Michael (2010). The Qur'an in context: Historical and literary investigations into the Qur'anic milieu. Leiden: Brill. p. 227. ISBN 9789047430322.
  6. ↑ Hamdani, al-Hasan. Geography of the Arabian Peninsula. p. 236.
  7. ↑ Smart (1997). New Arabian Studies Vol 4. Exeter. p. 213. ISBN 0859895521. "Hagar is name of Bahrain division and its capital"
  8. ↑ Tareekh al-Bahrain: Shaikh Tahir al-Qassimi, pages 53-65
  9. ↑ Abdulkhaliq Al-Janbi. Gerrha, The Ancient City of International Trade جره مدينة التجارة العالمية القديمة.
  10. ↑ Larsen, Curtis (1983). Life and Land Use on the Bahrain Islands: The Geoarcheology of an Ancient Society. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-46906-9.
  11. ↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gerrha" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 11 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  12. ↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gerrha" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 11 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  13. ↑ Hoyland, Robert (2002). Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the coming of Islam.

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