Tylos

For the genus of woodlice, see Tylos (crustacean). For the exoplanet formally named 'Tylos', see WASP-121 b. For the Greek island of Tilos, see Tilos.
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Tylos (Ancient Greek: Τύλος) was the Greek exonym of ancient Bahrain in the classical era, during which the island was a center of maritime trade and pearling in the Erythraean Sea.[1] The name Tylos is thought to be a Hellenisation of the Semitic Tilmun (from Dilmun).[2] From the 6th to 3rd century BC Bahrain was part of the Persian Empire.[3] After the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great, his admiral Nearchus led an expedition which discovered the island, and serving under Nearchus was Androsthenes of Thasos, who left an extensive account of the island in Periplus of India, the source of many subsequent writers, including the contemporary botanist Theophrastus, who states that the island was a rich source of cotton and timber.[4]

  1. ^ Curtis E. Larsen, Life and Land Use on the Bahrain Islands: The Geoarcheology of an Ancient Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), p.50.
  2. ^ Jean-Francois Salles, in Traces of Paradise: The Archaeology of Bahrain, 2500BC-300AD, ed. Michael Rice and Harriet Crawford (I. B. Tauris, 2002), p.132.
  3. ^ Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh, Security and Territoriality in the Persian Gulf: A Maritime Political Geography (London: Routledge), p. 119.
  4. ^ A. H. L. Heeren, Historical Researches Into the Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the Principal Nations of Antiquity (London: Henry Bohn, 1854), p.38, 441.