Dilmun Burial Mounds

I visited A' ali on the 23rd of january. Just a few hours before I had marked all dilmun burial mounds on an off-line map of maps.me in order to find all relevant mounds in that area even without an internet connection.

A'ali is easily reachable by public transport. I just took the bus from Manama's central bus station to Isa Town Bus Terminal and from there another bus to A'ali . The bus stopped a stone's throw away from the royal burial mound nr. 2 ( If I remember correctly) . I visited as many burial mounds as I could in A'ali. I lost track of how many I really saw there. One of them had its own guard and a tiny guardhouse. I just asked the african guard if I could go inside. He had no objections and even opened the gate for me. All other mounds were fenced off by a more symbolic kind of fence. I climbed up on some of them.

I spent around 2 h in A'ali, visited many burial mounds,had a karak tea in an indian cafe and a long chat with two elderly australian ladies.

All in all I had a pleasant time in A'ali and the trip was worth the spent time and energy. A'ali is a strange place with all the mounds plastered around the city. Makes it a kind of unique place in the world.

As Frederick wrote:""" The mounds were quite underwhelming, but collectively …

I visited Dilmun Burial Mounds before UNESCO recognized its status. This World Heritage site was part of my private half day tour around Bahrain. Actually, It was not a part of the original tour program, but after had a fruitful discussion on ancient Dilmun civilization with my historical buff guide during our walking tour to see Pearling Heritages in Muharraq, my guild wanted to show me the Dilmun royal mounds, so after negotiated with a driver, we squeezed Dilmun Mounds in the plan. We went to city of Aali, after made a brief stop to see few remains water springs of Bahrain, it hard to believe that Bahrain was once full of water springs and very green island and was considered a heaven on earth, I found myself to be standing on the top of the Royal Mound No.1.

The large earth mound was uninspiring surrounded by the city, similar to what I saw royal tombs in Japan near Nara, a big hole show ruins of multi burial chambers and indicated that it was already excavated by archaeologists or grave robbers. My guide recommended me to go to the top of the mound to see the view of whole city, something that should not be allow anymore after UNESCO listing. From the top I saw other big royal mounds blending with the whole urban landscape, a very interesting sight. After my guide explained different styles of burial ritual of Dilmun and what I should see in the national …

Visit: January 2016. It is quite difficult to get around Bahrain without spotting at least one of the burial mounds. They are numerous and spread around the island. Just be aware that not all of them are inscribed. I mainly visited A’ali field, passing by other fields by car. The place is far from touristy. It’s actually next to a military premise and the soldiers there checked my camera to make sure I did not photograph their structures. There is not much to see anyway. The fields look like the work of a giant mole. At the time of my visit (2016) there was no information on site and no special protection of the mounds.

I must admit I am not especially fond of Bahrain. I didn’t warm up with the country and tried to visit as many TWHS as possible in order to avoid having to go back. None of them were good. But luckily my efforts paid off with this visit. I understand the value of these mounds, but due to the lack of information and the fact that it’s just a bunch of hills this was a dull visit.     

Just drive down Shaikh Salman southbound. You will see the mounds from the highway.

The Tumuli fields are the most distinguishable historical landmarks of Bahrain. There are a number of them in the northwest of the island. I visited them while driving around this small country for a day, taking in its first oil well and Riffa Fort as well.

The Tumuli field at Hamad was the first one that I encountered - it's located next to the main road. Somehow I had thought of it as a remote archaeological site, but this field (and the others that I saw) is right in the middle of a town. Think of the size of a football pitch or a small park. And then it's just sandy hills with small rocks as far as you can see. Unfortunately, there are no interpretative signs on site.

The bigger field at A'Ali I even found full of garbage and litter. I don't think that they are being worked into proper tourist sites.

The National Museum of Bahrain has good displays about these tumuli. There are so many of them left (170000!) that once it was even thought that people from the Arab mainland were buried here (and that Bahrain was an island solely for the dead). But statistics proved that there were tumuli accounting for 1 dead every 3 days, leading to a local population of about 4500 inhabitants.

We visited most of Bahrain’s T List sites in 2005 and, with Bahrain hosting the 2011 WHC, are interested to guess which (if any) might be inscribed as that country’s “reward”! Could it be the “Hamad Town Tumuli Moundfield” site? Well this site appears to have been superseded by the “Burial sites of Dilmun and Tylos” which includes the mounds around Hamad in tis own right so it isn’t clear why Bahrain has left it on its T List. We saw these but felt that the Aali area provided a better site if you have to choose just 1 (there are plenty to choose from and you are likely to drive past several in getting to one to view in detail).

We visited most of Bahrain’s T List sites in 2005 and, with Bahrain hosting the 2011 WHC, are interested to guess which (if any) might be inscribed as that country’s “reward”! Could it be the “Burial Ensembles of Dilmun and Tylos”? Now, right from the start, I must make it clear that we were blown away in amazement at these remains – burial mounds stretching into the desert as far as the eye could see (photo 1). At first sight one thinks that they must be the detritus from some huge modern construction project and that dumper trucks have left thousands of mounds of unwanted spoil. But no – each one represents a single or family burial. Go to the magnificent Bahraini National Museum to see a reconstruction of one shown in section. Most of the mounds are 1-2 mtrs in height but, in some areas, there are enormous hills which tower over the surrounding houses. Their age covers the period “mid 3rd millennium B.C. till the mid 1st millennium A.D.” – such continuity, such enormity!!

Now this T List site was only added in May 2008 and encompasses 11 different sites of moundfields and associated remains. Surprisingly, these 11 include 2 other sites from Bahrain’s earlier T List which dates back to Sep 2001 and which have been allowed to remain in the new list

a. The Hamad Town Tumuli moundfield

b. The Saar Honeycomb tombs

So could this be Bahrain’s 2011 “prize”? Certainly the fact that the new …