
Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Bir Baghira
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
What the sources say
Bir Baghira is a megalithic mound recorded in Libya. In open records it appears as Wikidata item Q105991283, mapped at 25.9226° N, 12.9006° E.
Built from structured records, not from an articleSources and licences
The full article
About Bir Baghira
This kind of monument hereSources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
A tumulus, or barrow, is a mound of earth and stones raised over one or more graves. A cairn is the same idea in stone, and in different places the same monument is called a barrow, kurgan, kofun, haugr or mound. Mounds are among the oldest and most widespread grave markers on Earth. They were built in Europe from the Stone Age to the Iron Age and beyond, across the steppe and Central Asia, in China, Korea and Japan, and in the Americas. A simple mound is a hemispherical heap of earth or stone raised over a burial placed in the middle; more complex ones have ditches, stone kerbs, and chambers of stone or timber, and many were built up in layers of soil, stone and turf. Further down this page, About this kind of monument gives the whole of “Burial mounds and tumuli worldwide”.
Dating
No date has been recorded for this site, and the Atlas does not guess one. Where a regional range exists for this kind of monument it is given in the notes on this page, as background and not as a date for this site.
Landscape and neighbours
The catalogue holds no other site within 10 km, so this one stands alone in its surroundings. It is one of 4 megalithic mound records among the 4 sites catalogued in Libya.
Records and protectionSources for this section
Sources for this section
The open records used here carry no heritage designation for the site, which says nothing either way about its legal status. The open records for it are Wikidata (Q105991283), where corrections and further identifiers can be added. Many such sites stand on private land; check local access rules and respect the monument and its surroundings.
How this page was madeSources for this section
Sources for this section
This page was built automatically from Wikidata (CC0) and the regional article “Burial mounds and tumuli worldwide”, written for the Atlas from the Wikipedia articles it cites (CC BY-SA 4.0), plus distances and counts computed from the catalogue coordinates. It contains no AI-written text.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Burial mounds and tumuli worldwide
A tumulus, or barrow, is a mound of earth and stones raised over one or more graves. A cairn is the same idea in stone, and in different places the same monument is called a barrow, kurgan, kofun, haugr or mound. Mounds are among the oldest and most widespread grave markers on Earth. They were built in Europe from the Stone Age to the Iron Age and beyond, across the steppe and Central Asia, in China, Korea and Japan, and in the Americas. A simple mound is a hemispherical heap of earth or stone raised over a burial placed in the middle; more complex ones have ditches, stone kerbs, and chambers of stone or timber, and many were built up in layers of soil, stone and turf.
Dating mounds is hard because most have never been opened. Archaeologists use radiocarbon dating of bone, charcoal and wood; tree rings where timbers survive; pottery and metalwork inside; and the typology of the mound's shape. Where none of these is available the Atlas gives a broad range. The grave goods of the richest mounds, such as weapons, gold, horses and even ships, show that the mounds were also statements of rank and power.
Cairns carry a good deal of folklore. In Ireland it is traditional to carry a stone up from the bottom of a hill and add it to a cairn at the top, and an old Scottish Gaelic blessing says "I'll put a stone on your cairn". In Portugal a legend says that the stones of a cairn (moledro) are enchanted soldiers. These are traditions, not facts about who is buried.
When visiting, look for the setting: mounds are usually placed to be seen from a path, a ridge or the sea.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Tumulus, Wikipedia: Burial mound, Wikipedia: Kurgan, Wikipedia: Cairn, Wikipedia: Round barrow · CC BY-SA 4.0
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.

The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Where it stands
Libya
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 25°55′21″ N, 12°54′02″ EFor a GPS or map app: 25.92255, 12.90058
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
1 source behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q105991283wikidata.org
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Credit
Text, licence and sources
This page is assembled from open records (Wikidata, CC0; OpenStreetMap, ODbL) and a tradition article paraphrasing Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). No article exists for this site, and nothing here is written by a model.
- Wikidata Q105991283CC0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
