Event: Bahrain

Barbar Temple

When:	Daily; not Fri
Where:	Barbar Temple
Costs:	Free
Opening Hours:	Daily (closed Fri)

It is believed that the Barbar Temple was built in three stages between 3,000 and 2,000 BC to worship the legendary God Enki. Remains include two sacrificial altars, a well and walls made of huge stone blocks.

It is built on a spring of water, on which there is a basin of the sacred well, surrounded by walls of stone. Worshippers who descended the staircase from the upper structure of the temple to this holy spring probably washed here.

At the top of the staircase is the temple in which Enki and his wife were worshipped. There are still traces of walls and remnants of two altars to sacrifice offerings, which are built of smoothed stones in a circular shape. In the middle of the temple there is a rectangular platform which forms the main court.

The first oval temple was built around 3000 BC, while the second was built of limestone around 2500 BC, and the third between 2100 BC to 2000 BC. The three temples are built one on top of the other, which is a feature of Sumerian temples, where the higher is built on the ruins of the lower and the most ancient when it collapses and falls.

In the layers of this temple many tools were found, including circular dilmunic seals, marble vases, incense burners and pottery goblets, pottery of different colours, copper weapons and small pieces of gold.