New observations on the Achaemenid presence in the Persian Gulf

The author, inspired by a visit to the National Museum of Bahrain and the Museum of the Qal‘at al-Bahrain site, where the explanatory apparatus of the rooms dedicated to the Iron Age seems to minimize the Achaemenid presence that some artefacts clearly indicate, and where artefacts that present traits of clear relevance to the material culture of the Achaemenid Iranian plateau are generically referred to a cultural continuity of the ‘late Dilmun’ period covering the Iron Age from 1000 to 400 BC, reviews the studies devoted to the archaeological evidence of the Achaemenid presence in the Persian Gulf. He considers that the results of the Danish excavations at Qal‘at al-Bahrain are such that the full incorporation of the entire Persian Gulf into the Achaemenid empire can be accepted without hesitation, confirming the interpretations already proposed by J.-F. Salles. In this perspective the centre of Tamukkan mentioned by the Persepolis Fortifications Tablets - located in the coastal strip of Fars - appears as a sort of Achaemenid capital of the Persian Gulf, which was an integral part of the empire, even with its south-western shore garrisoned by Phoenicians.