Uqair (), also transliterated as al-'Uqair, Uqayr, and Ogair, is an ancient seaport located in the Al-Ahsa Governorate of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Situated on the Persian Gulf coast, it is considered one of the earliest seaports in the region and has been linked to the ancient city of Gerrha mentioned in classical Greek and Roman sources. Uqair is also notable as the site of the 1922 Uqair Protocol, a significant event in the establishment of modern Saudi Arabia's borders. Today, Uqair is recognized for its archaeological remains, historical importance, and natural features. Its strategic location opposite the Al-Ahsa Oasis made it a vital link for sea trade with Bahrain and a key entry point for caravans to inland regions until the 1930s.
Etymology The name "Uqair" is attributed to the Ajaru () or Ajeeru () tribe that inhabited the region in the first millennium BC. It is believed that the name was altered to "Uqair" due to a common practice in the Gulf dialect of substituting certain letters, such as replacing the "qaf" (ق) with the "jeem" (ج), resulting in "Ajeer" instead of "Uqair."
History Uqair's importance stemmed from its strategic location on a protected bay opposite the al-Hasa Oasis. Al Uqayr was a vital link for sea trade with Bahrain, the Gulf's shipping and political hub. Until the 1930s, when road connections to Dammam, Qatif, and al-Hasa were established, most imports for Hofuf and inland regions passed through Al Uqayr via caravans.
Ancient and Classical Periods Uqair has been associated with the ancient city of Gerrha, a wealthy merchant city described by classical authors such as Strabo and Pliny the Elder. Gerrha was a key player in the incense trade, connecting Arabia with Mesopotamia, India, and beyond. While the exact location of Gerrha remains debated, Uqair has been proposed as a potential candidate due to its proximity to the Al-Ahsa Oasis and its position along ancient trade routes. However, archaeological findings from a 1968 Danish expedition indicate that the Uqair ruins date to a later, Islamic period.
Archaeological evidence suggests that Uqair was part of a broader network of settlements in the region, including Dilmun and Thaj . The area's access to fresh water from the Al-Ahsa Oasis and its coastal location made it an ideal site for a trading port.
Link to Gerrha Ancient Gerrha has been associated with several locations. The notorious shifting sands of the desert have made it difficult to locate the trading emporium, well described in general history and archeological texts. Even though Uqair is the present location of what is believed to be an Islamic fort, the whole region twenty miles north of the current structure was also referred to as Uqair, or Gerrha, long before the fort was built. The lost city of Gerrha according to Danish archeologist Geoffrey Bibby, however, "still awaits its discoverer."(Bibby, p. 325)
In accounts written by his biographer Arrian, Alexander the Great mentions a planned coastal exploration of 323 BC that includes the eastern Arabian coast but does not mention Gerrha. A hundred years later, however, Eratosthenes tells of merchants from Gerrha carrying their spices and incense overland to Mesopotamia. And later Strabo quotes Artimedoros: "by the incense trade ... the Gerrhaei have become the richest of all the tribes and possess great quantity of wrought articles in gold and silver."(Bibby, p. 317) Gerrha is described by Pliny the Elder: "On the Arabian shore of the Gulf one comes to the island Ichara and then the Gulf of Capeus where we find the city of Gerrha, five miles in circumference, with towers built of square blocks of salt. Fifty miles from the east lying in the interior is the region of Attene and opposite to Gerrha is the island of Tylos."(Bibby, p. 318).
In 200 BC a Greek grammarian named Agatharchides, who wrote a book on the Erythraean (modern Red) Sea now lost, is quoted by the Roman geographer/historian Strabo on Gerrha: "from their trafficking, the Gerrhaeans have become the richest of all; and they have a vast equipment of both gold and silver articles, such as couches and tripods and bowls, together with drinking vessels and very costly houses; for doors and wall and ceilings are variegated with ivory and gold and silver set with precious stones."(Frankincense and Myrrh, A Study of Arabian Incense Trade, Nigel Groom, p. 67) The city of Gerrha played a central role in the interchange of commodities of certain regions of the Arabian Peninsula during the reign of the Seleucid King Antiochus III, (223–187 BC). Most notable was the frankincense and myrrh of southwestern Arabia in Yemen's Hadramawt region.
The Gerrhaeans also traded with East Africa and China through India. In their activity "they act as the warehouse for everything from Asia and Europe ... seem more prosperous than the Sabaeans."(Groom, p. 71) Trade through Gerrha was heavy in the time of Antioch; Strabo writes: "the leading people of this time were the Gerrhaeans, and the Arab tribe whose capital lay on the mainland just opposite Bahrain made ... enormous incomes by trading the precious wares of Arabia and India to the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris, along the upper course of the rivers by ancient caravan routes to the coast of Syria and Phoenicia even as far as Delos and the Aegean Sea."(Bibby, p. 113)
The lure of wealth generated in Gerrha by its inhabitants was too tempting for Antiochus to avoid. In 205 BC, he felt it necessary to make a large-scale military incursion against the Gerrhaeans with the object of securing himself a reasonable portion of their trade.(Bibby, p. 330) Antiochus was diverted from his goal of capturing the city, however, when the "Gerrhaeans bought off his attack with 500 talents of silver, 1000 talents of frankincense, and 200 talents of 'stacte' myrrh."(Groom, p. 195)
Ties to Mesopotamia Trade and commerce of early civilizations in the Persian Gulf region was both the umbilical cord to surrounding cultures and the eventual physical link that has allowed scientists and researchers to literally piece together its murky history. The greatest regional center of civilization lay only 300 miles north of Uqair at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Mesopotamia, a very fertile region north of this confluence in modern Iraq, and where Sumerian civilization began. By 3500 BC the Sumerians were living and trading beyond the Strait of Hormuz, venturing out as far as the Indus River and the Red Sea. The Sumerians were conquered by the Semitic Akkadians in 2340, becoming united under Babylon from 1792 - 1750 BC.
Dilmun Gerrha was preceded by the legendary Sumerian-era civilization of Dilmun (4000 - 2000 BC), which has been archeologically linked to the northern tip of Bahrain. During its zenith, the culture controlled the oceanic trading routes to the Indies and was the trading link to the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia.(Area Handbook for the Persian Gulf States, 1st Edition, p. 11) To the Sumerians, Dilmun was the land of immortality and the god of Abzu. The second sea of fresh water that lay beneath the gulf and was believed to flow from the Tigris and Euphrates under the ground to present Bahrain - in the land called Enki. "Dilmun founded a maritime network unrivaled for its breadth by any other in the early days of man's world ... it was home of the Utunapishtim, who survived the flood, it was soapstone for figurines, alabaster for bowls, carnelian heads beads, cowries and pearls ... it was copper and lapis lazuli.".("The Sumerian Connection", Jon Mandaville and Michael Grimsdale, ARAMCO World March/April 1980) Dilmun is the "Paradise Land, the original home of the gods, the archetypical Holy Land" to which the Mesopotamian hero Gilgamesh travels to in his epic journey.(Dilmun Discovered, Michael Rice, p. 7).
Danish expedition Geoffrey Bibby, an English archeologist who excavated on the island of Bahrain from 1954 to 1969 and claimed it to be Dilmun, included Uqair, across the straits, in his investigations, visiting it on three separate journeys, in 1963 by air only, and in 1965 and in 1968 by land. Bibby wrote:
In Bibby's quest for the city of Dilmun he managed three sondages (digs) at the city of Uqair. Of his investigation, he detailed his search for pre-Islamic clues: "the ruined city of Uqair stretches more vastly on the ground than it appeared from the air. I followed ... the northern wall across the subkha [Arabic term for dried salt flats] toward the shore, the ruined tower - certainly a modern addition - marked the southwestern corner ... ahead of me the wall ended at a coastal tower, but like the wall, only a course or so high ... and beyond the strait lay the mud brick houses and yellow fort of the present villages."(Bibby, p. 323).
Bibby details the construction of the wall and deduces that "the wall was built of a coral like conglomerate called farush," which to Bibby "felt wrong because of the fluctuating level of sea water." He stated; "If anywhere there was a subkha today there should have been water even as recently as 2000 years ago. If that were true then this wall (at Uqair) could not be as old as the wall at Thaj."(Bibby, p. 324.) (The walls of Thaj, another ruined city near Qatif, were built during the same period as Gerrha - the Greek period.) But as Bibby concludes ... "in the cities of the Greek period on Bahrain and the temple of towns of the Seleucid on Failaka (an island off the coast of Kuwait once thought to be a Hellenistic foundry of coins) farush was never used. The walls there were made of quarried limestone."
Northwest of Uqair, referred to as the salt mine site, or Gerrha, are the extensive remains of irrigation works and fields visible on aerial photographs of the area, some of which may be dated to the Hellenistic period. (Potts, p. 56-57). Bibby went to these irrigation channels to dig and search for artifacts in 1968. He excavated what he labeled the "subkha fort and produced several shards comparable to types known from Thaj and Hellenistic Bahrain. Identical results were obtained in a sounding carried out in a different structure. This was the so called inland fort. It measured 150 ft. (49 m) by 156 ft. (52 m) and was constructed by large stone ashlars. The contention has sometimes been made that this was the site of ancient Gerrha, but there is no evidence to support this. (Potts, p. 56-57). The site of the fort is not the same as the irrigation channels.
Other important surrounding locations of antiquity The location of pre-Islamic Al-Hasa is of great importance and relevance to Uqair. Artesian wells once fed "a series of interconnected streams and lakes draining north eastward toward the Persian Gulf above Uqair. Reports of the existence of this active ravine system can be traced back to the time of Pliny."(Potts, p. 29) Evidence of this effluent has a great bearing on the exploration of the fort at Uqair and the ancient Arabian city of Gerrha. A large source of fresh water near the Persian Gulf is reason enough to create a trading port located at Uqair and to facilitate the civilization that flourished at Al-Hasa. It is well documented that the Al-Hasa region and most notably Uqair were once considered to be strong candidates for the possible lost city of Gerrha, an emporium of trade and mercantile activity dating to at least 225 BC.