Madinat Hamad 3 Burial Mounds Field - Dar Kulayb
- Category
- Archeology & Heritage
- Area
- DAR KULAYB
This is one of the components of the UNESCO World Heritage Site “Dilmun Burial Mounds”. The Madinat Hamad 3 cemetery is the southernmost of the Madinat Hamad fields with a high concentration of Late Type burial mounds. Similarly, to the other burial mound fields, it can be assumed that the cemetery belongs to an individual Dilmunite settlement of which only its cemetery survives. 1,331 burial mounds remain as the last witnesses of this community. Due to its vicinity to the village of Dar Kulayb it is also known as the Dar Kulayb Burial Mound Field.
The tumuli can be dated to the time from 2050 to 1700 BCE, as their architecture as well as their excavated grave contents proves them to be of Late Type. Compared to the Madinat Hamad 1 and Madinat Hamad 2 Burial Mound Fields, the mounds in Madinat Hamad 3 cemetery are more homogeneous, presenting an average diameter of circa 8 m. There are, however, a few smaller as well as bigger examples, ranging from 3 m to 15 m.
The present property does not include excavated mounds. This burial field was however investigated on several occasions in the past by several expeditions (Cornwall in 1940, BAPCO in 1965 and by the Direction of Archaeology of Bahrain in the 1990s, at the time of the development of Madinat Hamad).
