Shockwave of sun wakes a world of dazzle and sheen. Through the morning souq I walk, past shopkeepers unlocking doors and assembling wares, through riverine air thick with the smell of cinnamon and saffron and sun-dried limes stacked in black ziggurats in front of spice shops. This tangled city at the edge of Bahrain is Manama. The city tilts over a vast underground sea, the sea of Enki – the old Dilmun lord of creation and magic and semen – the sea from which Gilgamesh sought his plant of immortality.