Gerrha
Gerrha (Arabic جرهاء), was an ancient city of Arabia, on the west side of the Persian Gulf.
Describing the city
Strabo described the city as having "fancy tools made out of gold and silver, such as the family gold, Qawa'im triangles, and their drinking glass, let alone their large homes which have their doors, walls, roofs filled with colors, gold, silver, and holy stones" [1]
Location
No one is exactly sure where Gerrha was located, because it wasn't directly located in the sea, but had an oasis. The researcher Abdulkhaliq Al Janbi proved in his book[2] that Gerrha was most likely the ancient city of Hajar, located in modern-day Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia. Al Janbi's theory is the most widely accepted one by modern scholars.
Origins of the inhabitants of Gerrha
As Gerrha is located in the Arabian Peninsula, there's no doubt that the city's inhabitants were Arab. All scholars, except Strabo, who described the inhabitants as "Chaldean exiles from Babylon", he later retracted his statements when he said "Because of their trade, the Gerrhans became the richest of the Arabs" , agree that the inhabitants were indeed Arab. Also, petroglyphs were found in Greece and were found out to be sent by a man from Gerrha called Taym Al Lat, which is undoubtedly an Arab name.[3]
See also
Footnotes
References
- Bibby, Geoffrey (1970). Looking for Dilmun. Collins, London. ISBN 0 00 211475 5.
- Potts, D. T. (1990). The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity Volume II: From Alexander the Great to the Coming of
Islam. Oxford, Clarendon Press.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
