# The Dilmun burial mounds

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "The Dilmun burial mounds," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/dilmun-burial-mounds/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The ancient grave mounds standing in the Shia villages of Bahrain — ordinary ones ten or twenty feet high, royal ones fifty — which John Kiriakou took visiting friends and family to see, and which sat in the same villages the government was raiding at night during the uprising.*

- **Where:** Bahraini villages, including Saar
- **Age Kiriakou gives:** About 2,000 years old, from a civilisation going back to 500 BC
- **Height:** 10–20 feet; royal mounds about 50
- **Context:** In Shia villages, during the [uprising](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bahrain-intifada-1994)

**The Dilmun burial mounds** are the ancient grave mounds of Bahrain, and in [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s account of his [1994–96 posting](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bahrain-1994-1996-posting) they illustrate a political point as much as an archaeological one: nearly everything of historical importance on the island stood in a Shia village.

In his own village were mounds he describes as two thousand years old, from the Dilmun civilisation going back to 500 BC, standing ten or twenty feet high — and beyond them royal mounds of about fifty feet where kings and queens were buried. That was also a Shia village, Saar.[1][2]

The same pattern held for the living culture. When colleagues from surrounding countries, or his father, his brother or his college friends visited, Kiriakou would take them into the villages to meet the last native weaver in the country, sitting at his loom, or the master potters who made their pots from the mud of the village. All of it, he notes, in Shia villages.[3][1]

That is what makes the geography political in his telling. The [uprising](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bahrain-intifada-1994) might be taking place at the Ministry of Labour or the Ministry of the Interior, *"but the villages are exploded"* — and at night the government sent in first the police, who found themselves outgunned, and then the military with armoured personnel carriers and in some cases tanks, to start grabbing people.[2]

## See also

- [Bahrain Intifada (1994)](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bahrain-intifada-1994)
- [Bahrain Posting (1994–1996)](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bahrain-1994-1996-posting)
- [The Bahrain water table](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bahrain-water-table)
- [Abdul Amir al-Jamri](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/abdul-amir-al-jamri)

## Sources

1. S1E5 Singin' In Bahrain (2025-11-24), at 10:38. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/69224fd4e842b164ee8d9071/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-24-dead-drop-s1e5-singin-in-bahrain/
2. S1E5 Singin' In Bahrain (2025-11-24), at 11:09. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/69224fd4e842b164ee8d9071/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-24-dead-drop-s1e5-singin-in-bahrain/
3. S1E5 Singin' In Bahrain (2025-11-24), at 10:08. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/69224fd4e842b164ee8d9071/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-24-dead-drop-s1e5-singin-in-bahrain/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/dilmun-burial-mounds/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt