MANAMA, 20 July 2005 — The 4,000-year-old Qal’at Al-Bahrain (Bahrain Fort) has become the country’s first historical site to make it to UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The fort was one of 17 additions to the UN organization’s list announced at a recent conference in South Africa and is one of just a handful of such sites in the region to warrant UNESCO rating. The list now numbers 812 sites with the Republic of Moldova and Bosnia also earning their first entries.
But even before Bahrain’s history buffs could celebrate their success, another historical site in the country was being threatened with obliteration after some members of Parliament called for prehistoric burial grounds to be rezoned for housing. Archaeologists believe that Bahrain was used by prehistoric inhabitants of the Arabian mainland as a cemetery. The island has approximately 170,000 burial mounds covering an area of 30 square kilometers or five percent of the main island area.
The majority of the burial grounds date back to the second and third centuries BC but some are as recent as 2,000 years old. The oldest and largest burial mounds, referred to as the “Royal Tombs,” are found at Aali and measure up to 15 meters in height and 45 meters in diameter and they are at the center of the recent parliamentary debate.
On one side of the argument are MPs who argue that all the burial mounds in the area should be given protected heritage site status. On the other are the politicians who say the land would be better used to build homes. In an effort to reach a middle-ground consensus the Cabinet has proposed that one of the burial grounds at Aali is turned into an open air museum.
At a special session of parliament last Sunday, MP Adel Al-Mo’awda called for houses to be built on the land, saying he felt no pride at history associated with an atheist and ancient civilization that, as he put it, gave a jar here and a bone there. Al-Mo’awda, who was backed by other Islamist MPs said that the mounds should be removed, since housing for the living was better than graves for the dead.
MP Fareed Ghazi, who defended the proposal to preserve the burial mounds, said that only six percent of the graves in Aali remained, and they should be protected for future generations.
The Bahraini Cabinet and a number of local municipal councils have strived to register several historical sites, including the burial mounds, with UNESCO in an effort to develop tourism and diversify the economy. Officials behind the campaign to get Qal’at Al-Bahrain included hope it will be the first of many sites to be added.
Bahrain Fort itself was threatened by the commercial reclamation of the sea around it at one point. The renovated fort was reopened in late April 2005 in a ceremony attended by Bahrain King Sheikh Hamad Ibn Isa Al-Khalifa and the Duke of York Prince Andrew, in addition to Danish, French and British excavators. The ceremony, which lasted three days, also marked the golden jubilee of the discovery of the Dilmun civilization by a Danish expedition. The fort, which is located on a hill overlooking the Arabian Gulf waters on the northern tip of the island was built by the Portuguese.