Dilmun

A destroyed Golden-Age homeland is a common occurrence in Middle Eastern legend. The idea grew into the Biblical story of Eden, the all-providing land from which Adam and Eve were thrown for their sins. Many scholars have tried to trace Eden, both in terms of its location and its origin in written sources, and it is commonly placed in the Kurdistan highlands in eastern Turkey. 

‘Eden’ comes from the Akkadian word ‘edin’, meaning a terrace or steppe. The associated words ‘paradise’ and ‘heaven’ derive from ‘walled enclosure’ and ‘planted highlands’ respectively. Eden is therefore likely a plateau rich in vegetation and surrounded by mountains. Four great rivers rose in Eden, the Euphrates the only one now identifiable. The Tigris is assumed to be a second, and both of these rise in the Kurdistan highlands near Lake Van. Kurdish tradition has always placed Eden in this area.

The Euphrates in Turkey

Cuneiform tablets found in the city of Nippur in modern Iraq, dating to 2200BC, long before Biblical times, add a new twist to this story. The tablets tell of a divine race called the Anunnaki, who lived in a place called edin (the steppe). Here they cultivated land, domesticated plants, built cedar houses and granaries and managed prolific orchards.

Then came a winter of bitter cold, followed by a great storm, flooding, then an even harsher winter. A period of long darkness followed and lightning destroyed most of the buildings. It was the end for this idyllic land. The God Enlil said sorrowfully, ‘my settlement is shattered, it has been destroyed.’

Burial mounds of the Dilmun era in Bahrain. 

Dilmun was another name for this paradisiacal land of peace and harmony. The name was historically given to an island state in modern Bahrain, but also referred to an older, mythical mountain land. Again, this was placed in Kurdistan. A Kurdish dynasty called the Daylamites, who flourished around 1000AD, originated in a region called Dilaman several hundred years earlier. This region is to the southwest of Lake Van, just like Eden.

Perhaps both stories refer to a memory of an unusually rich and fertile land nourished by the great rivers which rose from the mountains, where advanced and skilled people long ago lived. 
So this is where I located Dilmun in the story, the rich and vibrant home of the Anunnaki and at one time the home of the Irin, until the star fell and near destroyed it. We will come to that next week.

The Kurdistan landscape. By Nóra Bartóki-Gönczy (Wikicommons).