Royal mounds
At A'ali.
© Think Heritage Author: Melanie Münzner — CC BY-SA 1.0 · © Think Heritage Author: Melanie Münzner — CC BY-SA 1.0 · Step — CC BY 2.0 · © Think Heritage Author: Melanie Münzner — CC BY-SA 1.0 · © Think Heritage Author: Melanie Münzner — CC BY-SA 1.0 · © Think Heritage Author: Melanie Münzner — CC BY-SA 1.0 · © Think Heritage Author: Melanie Münzner — CC BY-SA 1.0 · Storrs-Fox, Edwin Aubrey — Public domain
Vast fields of earthen burial mounds in the north of Bahrain Island, from the Dilmun civilisation and the Umm an-Nar culture, among the largest cemeteries of the ancient world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2019. Studies suggest there were some 350,000 mounds, built by the local population over thousands of years, concentrated on the hard, stony ground just above the farmland. The best known are at A'ali, including the huge so-called royal mounds, where the landscape rolls in waves of hillocks between houses and palms. Some opened mounds show stone burial chambers. You can see the mounds free from the surrounding roads, and some areas are fenced. The Hall of Graves at the Bahrain National Museum shows one of these burials as it was found, which completes the picture.
At A'ali.
In opened mounds.
Among palms.
A'ali and around, northern Bahrain Island
Studies suggest about 350,000, built over thousands of years, among the largest cemeteries of the ancient world.