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BURIAL MOUNDS NEAR ALI EXCAVATED

BY THE DANISH EXPEDITION

Karen Frifelt

When the Danish archaeological Expedition started work in Bahrain in December 1953
— almost to the date 30 years ago — its first priority was not excavation of the grave-mounds.
True, it was the number of the mounds — at that time on the basis of air photos roughly
calculated at 100,000 — that provoked the expedition. To quote from its first report: “The
presence of this enormous number of burial-mounds on an island which measures no more
than thirty miles from north to south and only a third of this from east to west is one of the
riddles of history, a riddle which was made more mysterious by the fact that not the slightest
sign of prehistoric habitation has been found on the island. The solution had therefore been
given that the numerous burial-mounds showed that Bahrain had been used as a prehistoric
island by the inhabitants of the Arabian mainland.”

The suggestion of Bahrain as a vast necropolis for the surrounding lands came from
Ernest Mackay who in 1925-26 had made a comprehensive investigation opening 34 tumuli
near the village of Ali. He was, however, not the first to call attention to the island. In 1878-79
Captain Durand opened one of the smaller and one of the largest mounds at Ali, and in 1889
Mr and Mrs Bent repeated this modus operandi, again at Ali. In 1903 the Belgian A.Jouannin
made a short examination of one of the big Ali mounds, and in 1906-07 Colonel Prideaux
tunnelled 9 big Ali mounds besides about 60 of the smaller ones. Of the mounds opened by
Mackay in 1925-26 (as mentioned above) several were among the larger tumuli. In 1940 P.B.
Cornwall excavated 30 mounds, but he chose the southernmost group on the island, Umm
Jidr, which had not been examined before in modern times. His graves, however, were not
different from the other 3rd millennium graves further north, as was noted by T.G.Bibby who
visited the site a few years after Cornvall. All these qualified excavators had in due time
produced reports, good solid work. Some of their conclusions have proved wrong, but their
observations are valuable. — During the years also many of the smaller mounds had been
opened by amateurs, while on one occasion 2 big Ali tumuli were examined by officers from
the English ship Sphinx (in the late 1880s).

For the Danish Expedition the main purpose was looking for settlements that could
explain the grave-mounds. To obtain comparative material — first and foremost pottery —
and to get a firsthand knowledge of the construction five mounds were carefully chosen and
excavated during the first campaign: two in a group west of Saar confirmed what was known
from previous excavations, they were of the characteristic Bahrain type, one with a stone
chamber and two sidechambers — alcoves — and the second one considerably larger with
two-storied chamombers and an entrance shaft, both good representatives of types used
during what we may call the Barbar or Dilmun civilization. The three remaining mounds from
this first campaign* different in appearance and from a group on the Manama-Budaiya road,
were Iron age and do not concern us here, except to point out that this campaign had already
made it clear that the burials covered several periods, a point that has tended to be forgotten
during later discussions on the origin of the enormous burial fields. The excavations were
published the following year.

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