Pearling, Testimony of an Island Economy, Bahrain

The Persian Gulf nations now bring to mind skyscrapers and air-conditioned shopping malls, but long before oil was discovered, pearl diving was the region’s main source of wealth. Seventeen buildings and the Qal’at Bu Mahir fortress complex in Muharraq City make up this site, along with three oyster beds and a section of the seashore. Visitors will find traditional shops, a mosque, and the former residences of merchants made rich by the pearl trade, a mainstay from the second century until the 1930s, when the Japanese invented cultured pearls.