Beehive Tombs

The bee-hive tombs of al-Ayn ( العین) belong to a series of protohistoric buildings surviving from the 3rd millenium B.C. They are usually associated with the Magan culture, described in contemporary Mesopotamian texts. Some scholars have linked the nearby complex of Bat with the Dilmun of the Epic of Gilgamesh. At any rate, the region was a major exporter of copper, mined locally, and sold to the Mesopotamian centres up the Persian gulf. Today, the tombs, which have been recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, stand in an rustically isolated place in the rocky area of Oman, at the border of the desert and in the foothills of the Jabal al-Hajar ("Rocky Mountains") . They are mostly single-chamber structures. Though the structures still stand, nothing has been found inside to my knowledge, and we do not know for sure who was buried here.

Oman, ad-Dhahirah Governate