LITMIR.BIZ

      Theodore Bent Receiving Visitors at The Mounds, Bahrein

      The dimensions of the mound on which we began our labours were as follows: 35 feet in height, 76 feet in diameter, and 152 paces in circumference. We chose this in preference to the higher mounds, the tops of which were flattened somewhat and suggested the idea that they had fallen in. Ours, on the contrary, was quite rounded on the summit, and gave every hope that in digging through it we should find whatever was inside in statu quo. At a distance of several feet from most of the mounds are traces of an outer encircling wall or bank of earth, similar to walls found around certain tombs in Lydia, as also round a tumulus at Tara in Ireland, and this encircling wall was more marked around some of the smaller and presumably more recent tombs at the outer edge of the necropolis; in some cases several mounds would appear to have been clustered together, and to have had an encircling wall common to them all.

      We dug from the top of our mound for 15 feet, with great difficulty, through a sort of conglomerate earth, nearly as hard as cement, before we reached anything definite. Then suddenly this close earth stopped, and we came across a layer of large loose stones, entirely free from soil, which layer covered the immediate top of the tombs for two feet. Beneath these stones, and immediately on the flat slabs forming the roof of the tomb, had been placed palm branches, which in the lapse of ages had become white and crumbly, and had assumed the flaky appearance of asbestos. This proved that the palm flourished on Bahrein at the date of these tombs, and that the inhabitants were accustomed to make use of it for constructive purposes.

      Six very large slabs of rough unhewn limestone, which had obviously come from Jebel Dukhan, lay on the top of the tomb, forming a roof. One of these was 6 feet in length, and 2 feet 2 inches in depth.

      The tomb itself was composed of two chambers, one immediately over the other, and approached by a long passage, like the dromos of rock-cut Greek tombs, which was full of earth and small stones. The entrance, as was that of all the tombs, was towards the sunset. This passage was 53 feet in length, extending from the outer rim of the circle to the mouth of the tomb. Around the outer circle of the mound itself ran a wall of huge stones, evidently to support the weight of earth necessary to conceal the tomb, and large unhewn stones closed the entrance to the two chambers of the tomb at the head of the passage.

      We first entered the upper chamber, the floor of which was covered with gritty earth. It was 30 feet long, and at the four corners were recesses 2 feet 10 inches in depth, and the uniform height of this chamber was 4 feet 6 inches. The whole surface of the interior to the depth of two or three inches above the other débris was covered with yellow earth composed of the tiny bones of the jerboa, that rat-like animal which is found in abundance on the shores of the Persian Gulf. There was no sign of any recent ones and only a few fragments of skulls to show what this yellow earth had been. We then proceeded to remove the rubbish and sift it for what we could find.

      The chief objects of interest consisted in innumerable fragments of ivory, fragments of circular boxes, pendants with holes for suspension (obviously used as ornaments by this primitive race), the torso of a small statue in ivory, the hoof of a bull fixed on to an ivory pedestal, evidently belonging to a small statue of a bull, the foot of another little statue, and various fragments of ivory utensils. Many of these fragments had patterns inscribed on them—rough patterns of scales, rosettes, encircling chains, and the two parallel lines common to so many ivory fragments found at Kameiros, and now in the British Museum. In fact, the decorations on most of them bear a close and unmistakable resemblance to ivories found in Phœnician tombs on the shores of the Mediterranean, and to the ivories in the British Museum from Nimrud in Assyria, universally accepted as having been executed by Phœnician artists: those cunning workers in ivory and wood whom Solomon employed in the building of his temple, and, before the spread of Egyptian and Greek art, the travelling artists of the world. The ivory fragments we found were given into the hands of Mr. A. S. Murray, of the British Museum, who wrote to my husband as follows: 'I have not the least doubt, judging from the incised patterns, from bull's foot, part of a figure, &c., that the ivories are of Phœnician workmanship.'

      The pottery found in this tomb offered no very distinctive features, being coarse and unglazed, but the numerous fragments of ostrich egg-shells, coloured and scratched with rough patterns in bands, also pointed to a Phœnician origin, or at least to a race of wide mercantile connection: and in those days the Phœnicians were the only people likely to combine in their commerce ostrich egg-shells and ivory. We also found small shapeless pieces of oxidised metal, brass or copper. There were no human bones in the upper chamber, but those of a large animal, presumably a horse.

The chamber immediately beneath was much more carefully constructed; it was exactly the same length, but was higher, being 6 feet 7 inches, and the passage was wider. It was entirely coated with cement of two qualities, the upper coat being the finest, in which all round the walls at intervals of two feet were holes sloping inwards and downward. In similar holes, in one of the other tombs we opened, we found traces of wood, showing that poles on which to hang drapery had been inserted. The ground of this lower chamber was entirely covered with a thin brown earth of a fibrous nature, in appearance somewhat resembling snuff; it was a foot in depth, and evidently the remains of the drapery which had been hung around the walls. Prior to the use of coffins the Phœnicians draped their dead,[6] and amongst this substance we found traces of human bones.

      Thus we were able to arrive at the system of sepulture employed by this unknown race. Evidently their custom was to place in the upper chamber broken utensils and the body of an animal belonging to the deceased, and to reserve the lower chamber for the corpse enshrouded in drapery. For the use of this upper chamber our parallels are curiously enough all Phœnician. Perrot gives us an example of two-storied tombs in the cemetery of Amrit, in Phœnicia, where also the bodies were embedded in plaster to prevent decay prior to the introduction of the sarcophagus, reminding us of the closely cemented lower chambers in our mounds. A mound containing a tomb with one chamber over the other was in 1888 observed in Sardinia, and is given by Della Marmora as of Phœnician origin. Here, however, the top of the tomb is conical, not flat, as in our mounds, which would point to a later development of the double chamber which eventually blossomed forth into the lofty mausolea of the later Phœnician epoch, and the grandiose tombs of Hellenic structure.

      Also at Carthage, that very same year that we were in Bahrein, i.e. 1889, excavations brought to light certain tombs of the early Phœnician settlers which also have the double chamber. In answer to Perrot's assertion that all early Phœnician tombs were hypogea, we may say that as the Bahrein Islands offered no facility for this method of sepulture, the closely-covered-in mound would be the most natural substitute.

      Before leaving the tombs we opened a second, and a smaller one of coarser construction, which confirmed in every way the conclusions we had arrived at in opening the larger tomb. Near the village of Ali, one of the largest mounds has been pulled to pieces for the stones. By creeping into the cavities opened we were able to ascertain that the chambers in this mound were similar to those in the mound we had opened, only they were double on both stories, and the upper story was also coated with cement. Two chambers ran parallel to each other, and were joined at the two extremities.

      Sir M. Durand also opened one of the mounds, but unfortunately the roof of the tomb had fallen in, which prevented him from obtaining any satisfactory results; but from the general appearance, it would seem to have been constructed on exactly the same lines as our larger one. Hence we had the evidence of four tombs to go upon, and felt that these must be pretty fair specimens of what the many thousands were which extended around us.

[3] II. 89.

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