Madinat Hamad is a young town built on very old ground. It was developed in the 1980s as a planned settlement, a grid of housing blocks, mosques, schools and shopping areas laid out on the desert west of A'ali, and its growth has pushed the suburbs right up to the edge of a burial field that is thousands of years old. The contrast is vivid: on one side, apartment blocks and satellite dishes; on the other, a field of rubble domes and silence.
The Madinat Hamad 1 field is one of the smaller sites in the World Heritage listing, but it is a good place to see how the mounds were distributed. They form loose clusters, with larger mounds in the centre and smaller ones around them, a pattern that suggests family or community groupings. Many have been disturbed by looters, farmers and builders, and the depressions where chambers have collapsed are visible as dark pits in the sandy surface. Unlike the royal mounds, these are the graves of ordinary people, and there is something touching in that.
For a rider, Madinat Hamad is a place of long straight roads, big roundabouts and consistent traffic. Streets are numbered in a grid, which makes navigation easy, but the sameness can be confusing, so keep your phone map handy. The main roads out of town lead to the highway to Manama and Riffa, and the interchanges are fast and busy. In the evening, the town's cafés and bakeries come alive, and the smell of grilled meat drifts from the roadside stalls.
With more than fifty thousand people, Madinat Hamad has all the services of a small city: petrol stations, supermarkets, banks and plenty of places to eat. Arabic coffee, dates and a plate of grilled fish or chicken are available at modest prices, and the portions are generous.
At the edge of the field, stand for a minute and watch the sun go down over the desert. In winter, when the air is clear, the sky can turn spectacular shades of orange and violet, and the mounds stand out as dark silhouettes against the glow.