Revisiting the snake burials of the Late Dilmun building complex on Bahrain

Abstract

The well-known snake burials from the Late Dilmun building complex at Qalat al-Bahrain are discussed in the context of pre-Islamic Arabian, Mesopotamian, Elamite, Avestan, and Vedic Indian evidence. Ancient attitudes towards snakes are reviewed with the aim of confirming or eliminating one or more of these traditions as the likeliest cultural context for the snake sacrifices of Bahrain.

Three‐Dimensional Mapping of Archaeological and Sedimentary Deposits with Ground‐penetrating Radar at Saruq al‐Hadid, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

“…The discovery of a possible plan of a structure or group of structures located approximately midway through the dune was an unexpected result of the GPR survey. This deposit, the second horizontal reflector from the surface in the GPR profiles, corresponds to levels where excavators found most of the Iron Age II bronze and ceramic vessels, including many that feature a snake motif that is associated with a snake cult (Benoist, ; Potts, ; Herrmann et al ., ). At other sites where artefacts with the snake motif have been found in abundance, as they are at Saruq al‐Hadid, archaeologists have also encountered ritual structures (Mouton et al ., ), including a structure that is interpreted as an open‐air altar of stone construction that is 2–5 m across (Benoist, ).…”

Archaeological applications of microvertebrate analysis: Reconstruction of natural and anthropic processes

“…The following arguments allowed us to propose not only an anthropic origin for this accumulation but also that it was not related to nutritional, technological or medicinal purposes: 1) only one vertebrate taxon was represented in the vessel although there are different taxa living in the area, pointing to an intentional selection of amphisbaenians, 2) the MNI was too high for such a small space, given that these solitary animals do not aggregate in nature, 3) they lay just a few eggs at a time, 4) the bones are very small and delicate, 5) the state of preservation of the faunal remains was excellent and there were no signs of natural or anthropic damage, 6) these animals live underground and are rarely seen on the surface, 7) because of their size, they have a very low economic yield, 8) the amphisbaenid bones were not associated with any other remains except the ceramic vessel itself, 9) the vessel was filled with sediments and covered by a ceramic bowl, 10) amhisbaenids do not appear in any other sample of the site and other species recovered in different structures of Tolombón are absent in the circular structure (e.g., mammals -such as Artiodactyla, rodents, and carnivores-and birds), 11) snake-like designs are very popular in the iconography of the Regional Developments Period, 12) a similar assemblage was recovered in another site of NW Argentina (amphisbaenians inside a ceramic vessel, filled with sediments and covered by a ceramic bowl, although in this second case, the bones were associated with the bones of an infant and the vessel was decorated with snakes), and 13) remains of amphisbaenians and snakes have been found inside ceramic vessels -filled with sediments and covered by ceramic bowls-in other parts of the world such as Peru or the Near East (see for example Bailon, 1997;Potts, 2007 andGoepfer et al, 2013), and they have been interpreted as animal sacrifices Kligmann et al, 2013).…”

Heirloom cylinder seals at Mleiha (Sharjah Emirate, UAE)

“…The similarities between the Rumeilah and Mleiha seals, as well as the imagery, suggest an Iron Age II date for the Mleiha seal, despite its discovery in a much later environment. Snakes already had a prominent role in Bronze Age Arabian and Near Eastern beliefs, cult practices and myths (Potts, 2007, pp. 64–69), but snake worship (ophiolatry) seems to have climaxed in SE‐Arabia during the Iron Age.…”

“…Snakes on Mleiha period objects like the al‐Jubba and Sama'il bowls could refer to specific pre‐Islamic deities like, for example, Wadd (Potts, 2007, p. 65; Robin, 2012, p. 83) but they could also be ‘heirloom images’ of the Iron Age cults. The occasional use of heirloom iconography was demonstrated by the discovery of a metal bowl at ed‐Dur that copied a characteristic Iron Age Levantine lion hunt with a chariot (Overlaet & Yule, 2018).…”