Page 72 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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(al-Mohammed et al. 1975). The resulting mean village population density was
found to be 166 persons per hectare. Based on this figure and those used by Adams
(1965) and Kramer (1978), the population of Qala’at al-Bahrain settlement may have
been between 6918 and 8335 persons during the Barbar n phase. These estimates
are also consistent with the rank size of settlements as discussed by Haggett
(1966:101). Given an urban center with a population between 7000 and 8000 and a
settlement system of only 20 villages, the total population of Barbar period Bahrain
may have ranged between 25,000 and 28,000. In light of the average population
estimates presented earlier, such indigenous populations would be more than
sufficient to account for the vast number of third millennium tombs on Bahrain.
These population models, originally presented in Larsen (1980), were later
readapted by Lamberg-Karlovsky (1982:49-50) to reinforce his claim that the many
third-millennium tombs on Bahrain are not related to contempory settlement. He
favors an explanation reminiscent of that of McKay (1925), who viewed Bahrain as a
necropolis. Lamberg-Karlovsky, astounded by the number of tombs on Bahrain (and
near Dhahran and the Yabrin Oasis in Saudi Arabia) has suggested that Bahrain-
Dilmun was the center of a burial cult. The proposed cult had its roots in the
Sumerian Flood story in which Ziusudra, the Sumerian counterpart of the biblical
Noah, was given immortality by the gods and sent to live in Dilmun. Lamberg-
Karlovsky links Dilmun with immortality and attempts to place it at the center of
a major tomb construction industry. Pilgrims seeking to gain access to the "land of
paradise” and assure immortality for deceased family members commissioned
tombs in which remains could be redeposited. He goes on to state that Dilmun's
identification as a "gateway to immortality" may have laid the foundation for its
important role in trade. Further, he concludes, in part based upon the above
population estimates, that:

it is clear that the extensive number of burials of Bahrain
(even excluding those of identical type and date from adjacent
northwest Arabia) far exceeds the estimated population of the
indigenous settlements and can be accounted for only by
secondary burial (archeologically attested) of foreign
populations. [Lamberg-Karlovsky 1982:50]