Page 109 - DILMUN 16_Neat

This date is confirmed by ١o conlemorary burials hich, from this leel of the
floors, ere laced ithin the underlying fll. The first, a grou-grae in a it,
contained three undisturbed inhumations and yielded a rich funerary deosit close to
South Mesoolamian tyes of the middle of the 1st milleium BC (Babylon, Ur,
iur, elc.) the second, hich consisted of a clay bathtub-sarcohagus and an
exterior deosit of to essels (Figre 16), also confornms to eo-Babylonian and
Achaemenid funery tradition obsered fronm the Leant to Mesoolamia (cf.
Stromnenger 1964).

The most imortant discoery in this leel rcmains hoeer the grou of 12 bols
deosited in seeral dug-out caities in the thic coated floor of one of the rooms
associated ith this architectural stage of he 6th/th centuries. Each contained the
coiled selelon of a snae, doubtless originally laced in a iece of material or a sac,
and sometimes acconmanied by one or seeral beads, usually in faience but including
aarently, in one case, a natural earl (Figre 1).

The interretation of these oluntary deosits, identical to those recoered to the
south of our structures by the Danish team in 19, is not yet clear. These could be a
G. Bibby already suggested (192 : 181-182), simle acts of reention, meant to
insure diine rotection and long life for the inhabitants of the lace it is also ery
temting to attribute this ractice to an actual ritual actiity erhas inoling the

Figure 1 Content ofsae-bol gA92.49.
4