Tell F3 on Failaka Island

Six years of excavations in Tell F3 have uncovered several occupation phases belonging to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, Failaka period 3B (c. 1600 BC). Though the material culture of Dilmun was heavily influenced by South Mesopotamia, this was a period where Dilmun regained its former importance after the economic and political collapse around 1700 BC, perhaps leading up to a final conquest by the Sealand Dynasty. The end stages of the development of Dilmun stamp seals are documented, e.g. the first find of a Style III Dilmun seal in a safe period 3B context. The renaissance in stamp seal Style III is paralleled in stone vessels decorated in the Failaka Figurative Style.