'Southern Arabia, by Theodore Bent, F.R.G.S., F.S.A., Author of 'The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland' 'The Sacred City of the Ethiopians' 'The Cyclades, Or Life Among the Insular Greeks' etc. and Mrs Theodore Bent' [‎21] (56/552)

THE MOUNDS OF ALI
21
plain. The village of Ali forms as it were the culminating
point; it lies just on the borders of the date-groves, and there
the mounds reach an elevation of over forty feet, but as they
extend further southward they diminish in size, until miles
away, in the direction of Eufa'a, we found mounds elevated
only a few feet above the level of the desert, and some mere
circular heaps of stones. There are many thousands of
these tumuli extending over an area of desert for many
miles. There are isolated groups of mounds in other parts
of the islands, and a few solitary ones are to be found on the
adjacent islets, on Moharek, Arad, and Sitrah.
Complete uncertainty existed as to the origin of these
mounds, and the people who constructed them, but, fiom
classical references and the result of our own work, there
can now be no doubt that they are of Phoenician origin.
Herodotus 1 gives us as a tradition current in his time
that the forefathers of the Phoenician race came from these
parts. The Phoenicians themselves believed in it: 4 It is
their own account of themselves,' says Herodotus; and
Strabo 2 brings further testimony to bear on the subject,
stating that two of the islands now called Bahrein
were called Tyros and Arados. Pliny follows in Strabo's
steps, but calls the island Tylos instead of Tyros, which
may be only an error in spelling, or may be owing to the
universal confusion of t with I.
Ptolemy in his map places Gerrha, the mart of ancient
Indian trade and the starting-point for caravans on the
great road across Arabia, on the coast just opposite the
islands, near where the town of El Katif now is, and accepts
Strabo's and Pliny's names for the Bahrein Islands, calling
them Tharros, Tylos or Tyros, and Arados. The fact is that
all our information on the islands prior to the Portuguese
occupation comes from the Periplus of Nearchus. Eratos-
■ tt on • X"V I. iii. 4.