Channel 4 News has been in contact with the team and is concerned about the welfare of the local driver who was arrested and assaulted before being separated from them. When last seen he appeared to be bleeding from slashes to his arms.

In common with other foreign media, Channel 4 News was denied journalist visas and worked without accreditation during the grand prix.

Tonight, speaking to the programme after his arrest, whilst being driven to Budiya Police Station, Jonathan Miller said: “Right now we’re concerned for our driver…things are rather worse for Bahrainis in police custody.”

He explained the circumstances leading up to the arrest.

“I’m in the back of a police vehicle in Bahrain, completely surrounded by riot police, and I’m being taken to Budiya police station in Bahrain City,” he said.

“We are operating without accreditation, so when we were caught filming a planned demonstration in one of the Shia villages – they have not been particularly pleasant. They’ve been very aggressive towards me, my crew and driver and Dr Al Shihabi, a prominent human rights activist.” “We were actually heading back to where we were staying to edit the piece we’d compiled for tonight – we’d met villagers in a Shia suburb off the main city, who were demonstrating night after night after night.”
A Channel 4 News spokeperson said:”We can confirm that our foreign affairs correspondent Jonathan Miller and his team have been arrested whilst reporting for the programme from a village in Bahrain. Our primary concern is for the safety of the team, and we are working with the appropriate authorities to secure a swift release. We are also working hard to establish the whereabouts of the driver they were with as we believe he has been separated from the group.”

According to their report there were 19 pieces of this vase for which they assume was over 50 centimeters tall. Vase found at the site of the Heijokyo palace in Nara Prefecture is about 100 years older than Islamic eramics previously found in Fukuoka Prefecture. It is believed this vase from the Abbaside Caliphate was used by traders from the Islamic world for carrying spices and other products from the Middle East to Japan.

Professor of archaeology at Kanazawa University, Tatsuo Sasaki said that this excavation confirmed their belief about Nara and that Nara was a main stop for traders on the Silk Road of the Sea during that period. At that time number of products including spices, oils, rose water, essences etc. were imported to Japan from Western Asia. These oils and essences were used for many health products. Beside such products from Western Asia were also imported jams with dates. In vases such as this from Heijokyo palace, traders carried products to Japan, which is over 10,000 kilometers distance from the Middle East.

Pieces of Islamic vase are dark green form the inner side and blue green from the outside. Exact spot of excavation was a Saidaji Temple in Heijokyo palace. Beside pieces of this vase excavation team found a piece of wood with written Chinese characters related to year 768 AD and Japanese emperor reigning. That way an excavation team was able to determine how old was Islamic vase found at the same spot.

Many researchers agree with Tatsuo Sasaki, and one of them  is Keisuke Morishita who is in charge of buried cultural property of the western city research. He said that Islamic vase found indicates that eastern and western Asia were linked by a Silk Road of the Sea.

This amazing discovery can help us understand trade and exchange roads between cultures during that early period. It is believed that vase came into Japan through Fukuoka which was a very important port in Japan during that period. From the Fukuoka port vase then probably traveled  by land and reached Heijokyo palace.