UNESCO adds Bahrain burial mounds to World Heritage List

DUBAI 7th July: The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has voted in favor on Saturday to add Dilmun Burial Mounds of Bahrain to its World Heritage List, praising the tombs for their amazing characteristics.

The burial grounds have 21 archaeological sites on the island, built some time between 2050 and 1750 BC, according to the global body.

“Six of these sites are burial mound fields consisting of a few dozen to several thousand tumuli,” it said in a statement.
In all of these there are some 11,774 burial mounds, UNESCO added, while there are another 15 sites which include 17 royal mounds built as two-storeyed towers.

The tombs are among a handful of nominations that were presented on Saturday as the World Heritage Committee meets in Azerbaijan’s capital city of Baku for its 43rd session.

UNESCO admitted that the burial mounds were proof of the early Dilmun civilisation, during this time Bahrain became an important trading hub, due to whichthis brought prosperity, which enabled the inhabitants to have an elaborate burial tradition used by the entire population.