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The Bahrain Burial Mounds

Bruno Frohlich

The Bahrain burial mounds, or tumuli, take up a based on two major sources : (1) preliminary data
large land of Bahrain Island : the mounds, ranging and results obtained from the analysis of the
in size from almost invisible to 24 meters high, human skeletal material, and (2) the methods
have been variously estimated to number between and concepts from the field of demographic
50,000, and 175,000, with the most recent and archaeology.
possibly most accurate estimate by Curt Larsen
(1980) to be approximately 172,000 mounds. The The techniques of archaeological demography
mounds are believed to have been construct­ are based on mathematical and statistical calcula­
ed during the third millennium B.C. although tions using data and material obtained, for
some have yielded material from later archaeo­ example, from archaeological excavations. These
logical periods including Kassite, Assyrian, and techniques result in estimations of mortality rates,
Hellenistic eras. life expectancies, population sizes, age-and sex
I The large number of burial mounds situated on a distributions, to name a few. However the calcula­
! relatively small island has resulted in several asser­ tions and the obtained results are based on aver­
tions as to their origin. Consequently, the outcome ages and means leaving little or no space for minor
i of these assertions has been based on finds and alterations of the biological composition of the
population. Thus averages and means are substi­
sources not always associated with the mounds,
but derived from other evidence in the Arabian tutes for a population structure with a possible
Gulf; the principal belief being that Bahrain Island high degree of variation in the size, mortality rates,
during the third millennium B.C. acted as a central and age- and sex ratios. The present data does not
burial ground for other geographical areas of the allow me to verify and identify these variations,
Arabian Gulf. It is unfortunately the case that the although they certainly existed. With this under­
origin of the burial mounds has been investigated standing in mind, the demographic analysis, based
by using outside sources, ignoring the fact that at on human skeletal remains, is an extremely useful
least some of the answers can be found inside the tool in understanding and reconstructing the
burial mounds, namely by analysing the material biological history of ancient populations. It is pos­
which constituted the rationale for the construc­ sible by using these techniques to evaluate the
tion of the mounds; the human skeletal remains. outside influences on Bahrain during the third mil­
This fact has until now been largely ignored. I lennium. For example, the possibility of Bahrain
therefore propose that the answers to most of the Island acting as a major burial ground for sur­
questions concerning the origin of the mounds can rounding geographical areas. This theorem has
be found by analysing the biological content of the been widely accepted (Mackay et al 1929, Corn­
mounds’ burial chambers, and incorporating the wall 1943, and Lamberg-Karlowsky 1981), mainly
results with non-biological data such as pottery, because of the fact that it has been difficult to
architecture, and other cultural finds and other understand the important relationship between
the total number of dead people (represented by
data.
In this article I will briefly describe some of the the number of burial mounds), the time-span in
which the burial mounds have been in use (rep­
results and ideas I have developed since 1978
resented by the analysis of the cultural finds and
when I began excavating burial mounds in the Saar
isotopic and chemical dating), and the life-
area with Shaikha Haya Al-Khalifa, of the Direc­
torate of Antiquities and Museum in Bahrain, and expectancy of the deceased population (rep­
resented by the analysis of the human skeletal
Moawiyah Ibrahim of Yarmouk University in Jor­
dan. The ideas and results presented here are remains).

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