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Bat, Al-Khutm and Al-Ayn — World Heritage Grave at Al Ayn / Oman

Megalithic complexUNESCO World Heritage

Bat, Al-Khutm and Al-Ayn

Also known asBat Oman beehive tombs

Oman

Datedc. 3000–2000 BCE

Where it standsSources

Photo F igy · Public domainSource file on Wikimedia Commons

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About this site

What the sources say

The Archaeological Sites of Bat, Al-Khutm and Al-Ayn (Arabic: ٱلْمَوَاقِع ٱلْأَثَرِيَّة فِيْ بَات وَٱلْخُطْم وَٱلْعَيْن, romanized: Al-Mawāqiʿ al-Athariyyah fī Bāt wal-Khuṭm wal-ʿAyn) are a group of beehive tombs or necropolis from the Hafit period in the 3rd Millennium BC, located near a palm grove in Oman. They were declared World Heritage by UNESCO in 1988, becoming only the second such Omani site after the Bahla Fort was designated world heritage in 1987.

Read on Wikipedia4 min readCC BY-SA 4.0

Age sources

How old this site is, and who says so.

Range across all claimsc. 3000–2000 BCE

Estimated

A reading of this site: what its style says, or a statement published about it.

Where it sits in time

The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.

The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.

  1. Göbekli Tepe9600 BCE
  2. First farming9500 BCE
  3. Avebury2600 BCE
  4. Great Pyramid of Giza2560 BCE
  5. Stonehenge2500 BCE
  6. Bronze Age collapse1200 BCE
  7. Rome founded753 BCE
  8. Parthenon447 BCE
  9. Hadrian's Wall122 CE
  10. Machu Picchu built1450 CE
12,000 BCE8,000 BCE4,000 BCE1 CE1,500 CE
This site

3000–2000 BCEHow this date was established: Stated by the sourceEstimated

A reading of this site: what its style says, or a statement published about it.
Source for this date

The full article

Bat, Al-Khutm and Al-Ayn: the whole story

4 min read743 wordsRead on Wikipedia

In brief

The Archaeological Sites of Bat, Al-Khutm and Al-Ayn are a group of beehive tombs or necropolis from the Hafit period in the 3rd Millennium BC, located near a palm grove in Oman. They were declared World Heritage by UNESCO in 1988, becoming only the second such Omani site after the Bahla Fort was designated world heritage in 1987.

The site of Bat lies inside a palm grove. Around 3000 B.C. there was an intense trade of copper, extracted locally, and stone, probably diorite, with the Sumerians. The necropolis consists of 100 graves and circular buildings, each with a diameter of about 20 metres (66 feet). These buildings have no outside openings, so besides a possible ritual function they may have been used as tanks or silos; their precise function is not yet known. In 1972 excavations by a Danish team led by Karen Frifelt showed that the area has been continuously inhabited for 4000 years.

The ruins at Al-Khutm are thought to derive from a stone fort, with a tower made of rock with a diameter of 20 metres (66 feet), located 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) west of Bat. Al-Ayn is a small necropolis, but it is in the best condition of the three. It is located 22 kilometres (14 miles) southeast of Bat.

The sites were not restored or conserved before the protection provided by UNESCO, so their isolation has been their only protection. One of the greatest dangers to their preservation comes from locals who take building material from the archaeological sites. A road between Oman and Saudi Arabia that passes through the villages was completed in September 2021.

Little more is recorded about these tombs. Landscapes of this kind, where several kinds of monument stand together, show how monuments relate to one another and to the land around them, and the Atlas treats such places as megalithic complexes.

History and dating

Studies during the last 15 years have shown the existence of numerous human settlements ranging from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman.

Bat

The site of Bat is located inside a palm grove. Around 3000 B.C., there was an intense trade of copper (extracted locally) and stone (probably diorite) with Sumerians. The necropolis consists of 100 graves and circular buildings each with a diameter of about 20 metres (66 feet). These buildings have no outside openings, so besides the possibility of their ritualistic function, they may have been used as tanks or silos. Their precise function is as of yet unknown. In 1972, the excavations carried out by a Danish team led by Karen Frifelt showed that the area has been continuously inhabited for 4000 years.

Al-Khutm

The ruins at Al-Khutm are thought to have derived from a stone fort, with a tower made of rock with a diameter of 20 metres (66 feet). They are located 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) west of Bat.

Al-Ayn

Al-Ayn is a small necropolis, although it is in the best condition of the three necropolises. It is located 22 kilometres (14 miles) southeast of Bat.