Aali cemetery is the principal cemetery of the Dilmun culture, an important trading partner between Mesopotamia and Meluhha in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. Located on the island of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, one edge of the cemetery juts into the modern town of Aali--or perhaps Aali juts into the cemetery. The cemetery covers an area of two square kilometers (~500 acres) and contains 11,100 recorded burial mounds. At that rate, Aali is one of the densest desert cemeteries in the world.
The cemetery is rectangular in outline, and it covers the northestern corner of the limestone rise on the island of Bahrain. The mounds are located on the western slope, which gradually rises from 1.7 meters (5.6 feet) at the northwestern slope to 25 m (82 ft) midway. The cemetery is bordered by the modern village of Aali, by agricultural gardens, and by the Wadi al-Sail. The mounds follow the edge of the limestone formation in a relatively straight line. Along a 300 m (~1000 ft) wide zone along the northwest side is a section of the cemetery where the mounds are both considerably larger and located much wider apart than anywhere else. East of that is a smaller set of large mounds: together these represent most of the "elite mounds" in Aali.
"Royal" Burial Mounds
Aali Cemetery contains 14 so-called "royal" burial mounds, which are called royal because they are larger and more elaborate than any other known burial mounds of the Dilmun culture, not because they have been tied to a known ruling dynasty: as far as historical record can tell us, there were no established dynasties in Dilmun culture. The royal mounds all belong to the Late Period of Dilmun (~2050-1800 BC) and they are segregated from the more mundane mounds, located on the northern corner of the escarpment and projecting into Aali village.
The elite tombs are ring mounds, a type of Dilmun mound that includes a circular to oval stone wall surrounding the mound itself. On aerial photos taken in 1959 by the British Royal Air Force, 46 total ring mounds have been identified on the island of Bahrain. But in the Aali cemetery, the five southern-most elite tombs share a ring wall, creating an almost unbroken, semi-circular facade extending for 550 m (1800 ft) along the perimeter of the area with the royal tombs. Radiocarbon dates taken on organic materials from these tombs indicate a date between 1890-1750 BC.
Burial goods recovered from Aali's royal interments included fragments of ivory figurines and scraps of furniture, as well as imported Iranian pottery and a quadruple-spiral gold bead similar to one from Troy.
Large Mounds
South of the royal burials is a group of 100 mounds with diameters more than 15 m (~50 ft), representing a prominent segment of early Dilmun population. Within this group is a cluster of ring mounds, with diameters between 66-84 m (217-275 ft), and mound diameters varying between 22-28 m (72-91 ft). Another cluster of ring mounds is located in the southwestern corner, represented by six large mounds, each 20-28 m (65-91 ft) in diameter with outer ring walls ranging from 50-60 m (165-195 ft).
Laursen (2008) believes the ring mound clusters at Aali and elsewhere are evidence of an official system of elite burial with a high degree of stability, beginning about 1950 BC, at the end of the Ur III period on the Mesopotamian mainland. He argues that the decline of Ur III and the rise of Dilmun may have been a result of the collapse of Magan.
Recent Mound Field Excavations
Investigations by the Bahrain Burial Mound Project, a joint Bahrain-Denmark research project, have identified a highly dynamic and ranked social organization reflected in the mound field at Aali. Using 1959 aerial photos (many mounds have been destroyed since that time due to modern development), Højlund and colleagues identified and excavated three early (~2200-2050 BC) and two late (~2050-1800 BC) ring mounds in and near the Aali cemetery. They were able to establish that early mounds do show social differentiation, despite their outward appearance of homogeneity.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to Dilmun Culture, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Højlund F, Hilton AS, Juel C, Kirkeby N, Laursen ST, and Nielsen LE. 2008. Late third-millennium elite burials in Bahrain. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 19(2):144-155.
Laursen ST. 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(2):156-167.
Laursen ST. 2009. The decline of Magan and the rise of Dilmun: Umm an-Nar ceramics from the burial mounds of Bahrain, c.2250–2000 BC. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 20(2):134-155.
Laursen ST. 2011. Mesopotamian ceramics from the burial mounds of Bahrain, c.2250–1750 BC. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 22(1):32-47.
