The first season of the Aʿali West Archaeological Project in Bahrain
Keywords:
Dilmun, kingship, Aʿali burial mound field, Aʿali Royal Mounds, Aʿali WestAbstract
Dilmun was one of the neighbouring kingdoms of Mesopotamia and flourished in the early second millennium BC by dominating the maritime trade. During this period, Dilmun society underwent rapid development, and a walled city and public temples were constructed in Bahrain, along with numerous burial mounds. The gigantic burial mounds located at the northern edge of the Aʿali burial mound field are generally regarded as the royal mounds of Dilmun. This group is therefore known as the Aʿali Royal Mounds.
In the western part of the Aʿali burial mound field (Aʿali West), there are six large burial mounds encircled by a ring wall (ring mounds). They are smaller in size than the Aʿali Royal Mounds. As the Aʿali Royal Mounds were also once surrounded by a ring wall, the ring wall is considered one of the defining features of the Dilmun royal mounds. These features have led to the suggestion that the ring mounds of Aʿali West may represent an early or socially distinct stage in the development of large funerary monuments in Early Dilmun.
The Aʿali West Archaeological Project was launched in 2025 to investigate these ring mounds. This paper presents the preliminary results of the first season of the project, which was carried out in 2025.
References
Abe M. & Okazaki K. 2026. A study on the Early Dilmun burial mounds with subsidiary burials. Pages 367–385 in S. Kadowaki, M. Abe, C. Akashi, S. Arai, Y. Arimatsu, Y. Kondo … K. Shimogama (eds), Curating the prehistoric past: Studies on West Asian archaeology and beyond in honour of Yoshihiro Nishiaki. London: Archaeopress.
Abe M. & Uesugi A. 2021. Reconsidering the date of Riffa type burial mounds in the Early Dilmun period: New radiocarbon data from Wadi al Sail, Bahrain. Al Rafidan 42: 75–85.
Abe M. & Uesugi A. 2024. Early Dilmun burial mounds in Bahrain: The Wadi al Sail archaeological project and Dilmun mapping project. Arabian Humanities (online) 19/2024. doi.org/10.4000/1243l
During Caspers E.C.L. 1980. The Bahrain tumuli. Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut.
Gotoh T., Saito K., Abe M. & Uesugi A. 2020. Excavations at Wadi al Sail, Bahrain 2015–2019. Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 50: 169–186.
Højlund F. 2007. The burial mounds of Bahrain: Social complexity in Early Dilmun. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Højlund F., Hilton A.S., Juel C., Kirkeby N., Laursen S.T. & Nielsen L.E. 2008. Third-millennium elite burials in Bahrain. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 19: 143–154.
Laursen S.T. 2008. Early Dilmun and its rulers: New evidence of the burial mounds of the elite and the development of social complexity, c. 2200–1750 BC. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 19: 156–167.
Laursen S.T. 2017. The royal mounds of A’ali in Bahrain: The emergence of kingships in Early Dilmun. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Laursen S.T. & Steinkeller P. 2017. Babylonia, the Gulf Region, and the Indus: Archaeological and textual evidence for contact in the third and early second millennium BC. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
Marchesi M. 2017. Inscriptions from royal mounds of A’ali (Bahrain) and related texts. Pages 425–433 in S.T. Laursen (ed.), The royal mounds of A’ali in Bahrain: The emergence of kingships in Early Dilmun. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Archaeopress Publishing, Oxford, UK
