Chapter 3: Methodology
3.5 Contextual Setting: Bahrain
This section presents the contextual setting and its selection rationale in relation to the research objectives, including the rationale and justification of selecting the four case studies with an emphasis on their contextual relationship to the historic site.
3.5.1 Rationale and Justification of Selecting the Research Setting; Bahrain Alongside the fact that Bahrain is the authors’ home country, where knowledge of context, language, history, and well as access to information is important to conduct this study, it also has historical status though varied historic vestiges that were only internationally recognized in the 19th century (Insoll et al., 2016). They included inscriptions, burial mounds, temples, and other sites such as mosques and cemeteries. There are also a number of vestiges of prehistoric sites of Dilmun civilization settlements such as Qal’at Al Bahrain (Fibiger, 2011; Heritage, 1993a). Such sites confirmed a continuous human occupation of more than 3,000 years. In addition, the vestiges indicate Bahrain’s connection to other civilizations such as Mesopotamia and The Indus Valley (MOI, 2004; Smith, 2013).
In 1953, a Danish archaeological expedition arrived in Bahrain and led to many discoveries that shed the light on the ancient history and civilization of the area (Heritage, 1993a; Insoll et al., 2016). The search for vestiges continued with major archeological explorations carried out by local and international expertise (Al- Khalifa, 2011).
In 1988, the Bahrain National Museum was built to conserve and preserve the rich archeological collection explored in Bahrain such as artifacts and archival documents (Jeong and Hae., 2016). This museum falls under the category of ‘loose fit’, as it is object-oriented and has an obstruction relation to context as described in
Chapter 2 (Section 2.2.3). In 2008, Qal’at Al Bahrain site museum was built nearby Qal’at Al Bahrain to preserve and display artifacts that were moved from the nearby site. In other words, the site museum was specifically built to interpret Qal’at Al Bahrain historic site. In addition, Qal’at Al Bahrain site museum was built responding to a UNESCO’s inscription in 2005. Ultimately, two historic sites in Bahrain were listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The first site Pearling Testimony of an Island of Economy inscribed on 2012 and the Dilmun Burial Mounds sites were inscribed in 2019 (BACA, 2019c).
The rich cultural heritage in Bahrain shaped the trend of the growing number of new museums such as Historic Site Interpretation Centers, visitor centers and cultural institutions. These interpretive centers are designed for both exhibition and interpretation purposes. Hence, Bahrain as a contextual setting for this study is appropriate to explore and answer the main research question, as it has the main components of this research namely, Historic Site Interpretation Centers and historic sites. In addition, these offer the potential to represent different contextual configurations and relationships between the historic site and the historic site interpretation centers, as further presented next.
3.5.2 Rationale and Justification of Selecting the Four Case Studies
Among the many Historic Site Interpretation Centers in Bahrain, Qal’at Al Bahrain and site museum, Shaikh Salman Bin Ahmed Al Fateh Fort and exhibition center, Bu Maher Fort and visitor center, and Al Khamis Mosque and visitor center were selected as case studies for this research. These settings were chosen due to their national, historical, and cultural importance and their ability to represent different relationships with their own specific context (Figure 3.6).
Figure 3.6: Different relationships between Historic Site Interpretation Centers and historic sites in Bahrain.
A: Represents the historic site (in situ) and B: Represents the historic site interpretation center (in context)
Figure 3.6 illustrates the different relationships between the contextual settings ' in situ' and ' in context' of each of the considered case studies. Qal'at Al Bahrain site museum and the Al Khamis Mosque visitor center are located nearby the historic site. The contextual setting provides an interchangeable walking path between the historic site and the site museum. Shaikh Salman Bin Ahmed Al Fateh permanent exhibition is located within the related historic site, which means that people can only reach the permanent exhibition by accessing the historic site itself, whereas Bu Maher Fort visitors' center is situated near the historic site, and is only accessible by water ferry, then the setting provides an interchangeable walking pattern between the historic site and the visitor center. These relationships are the core of this study, while it aims to evaluate the Historic Site Interpretation Centers physical features in conveying meaning from historic site to visitors and explore the elements that shape and form the stakeholders’ views as hypothesized.
Regarding the second objective of this study, each contextual setting interprets a different historic site narrative that the visitor may or may not know, as
A B
A B
A B
Case study 1: Al Khamis Mosque visitor center Case study 2: Qal’at Al Bahrain site museum
Case study 3:
Shaikh Salman bin Ahmed Al Fateh Fort permanent exhibition
Case study 4: Bu Maher Fort visitor center
the given examples below hold different historic narratives. These interpretation strategies may affect them differently. For instance, Al Khamis Mosque was used for worship until the 1960s, and the yard nearby the mosque served as a traditional market, known as “Souq Al Khamis” (Insoll et al., 2016). While, Qal’at Al Bahrain had a series of human occupation, and what could be presently viewed is the last one (Portuguese) and the rest remains hidden until today. Today, these sites are not having similar functions to those held in the past, instead they are touristic landmarks that reflects Bahrain’s heritage. Also, both have interpretive centers to display their collections and to convey their significance to visitors, the same applies to the other cases. This phenomenon remains the heart of this research, which is to explore the contribution of these centers to convey meanings from historic sites to visitors in Bahrain.
With the context described and justified, an understanding of the methods of sampling is required to account the possible impacts of participants’ classifications on the overall research findings.
3.6 Methods of Sampling: Online Survey and Open-Ended Interview