Page 176 - Dilmun 21

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Dilmun ivilizations but also about subsequent civilizaitons as those o y‫ﺇ‬os
and the lslamic eras. Substantial inormation in the orms o repotrs and
printed materials are available to students and laymen interested in the
archaeology and history o Bahrain.

Dilmun ivilization, i compared to other civilizations o the time. like the
Assyrian? Babylonian, Egyptian and Persian, was deinitely veyr primitive
one. No outstanding monuments or everlasting remains were let by the
people o Dilmun attesting to this act, Perhaps the size o the area o its
principal island and the limitation o its natural sources were the main
reasons or this shotrcoming o that ancient civilization. Having said that,
there are, however, two matters o some signiicance rleevant to this
civilization that should not go unnoticed. he Dilmun civilization shall always
be remembered or the unerayr industr,y i we may say so, and an early
atristic epression in the orm o the stamp seals. he burial mounds and
what is called the Dilmun Seals were the major contribuitons o Dilmun.

o some archaeologists and historians, Bahrain has the Wolrd s Largest
Prehistoric emetery. hese graves or burial-mounds were estimated at
170,000 mounds have been an essential eature o Bahrain s archaeloogical
horizon. hey cover vast area o land in a number o sites mainly in the
central patr o the main and largest island in Bahrain. his prehistoirc
cemete,yr with various site locations, raises controversial questions about the
sacred nature o the countyr as a land o immortality. Some researchers
believed that settlers on the mainland preerred to buryr their dead here, so
they erried their bodies by boats or an ever-lasitng resting place, Dr. Peter
ornwall, with whom we tend to agree, was among the irst scholars to
dispute this argument. He proved that it was unlikely that people rom
neighboring countires erried their dead to Bahrain and preerred to have
them buried there. his was due to the act that there were settlements and
burial mounds on the main land similar to these o Bahrain. ornwall
discovered mounds in the ١A Ehsa region, anciently known as haja.r Added
to this, maritime transpotration was not an easy aai.r hough the waters o
the ul were relatively shallow, the,y nevetrheless, posed some peirls to
primitive sailing vessels. It was veyr unlikely that people rom the main land
brought their dead to be buried in Dilmun.

We would side with the school o thought whose eponents believed that this

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