FAILAKA ~ IKAROS ~ THE ISLAND OF KUWAIT WITH A GREEK NAME

 

The history of one island off the coast of Kuwait dates back more than 3,500 years. The island of Fylakio, Greek for outpost, was a coveted prize of the world’s most ancient and famous civilizations.

Failaka’s name is derived from the Greek word for outpost. But Alexander the Great, according to later classical authors such as Strabo and Arrian, gave Failaka the name Ikaros, since it resembled the Aegean island of that name in size and shape. French archaeologists working on the island in recent years have found several stone inscriptions dating to the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE mentioning the name Ikaros, as well as architecture and artifacts that reveal a bustling community with international ties during that period. The island’s accessible fresh water, easily defended coastline, and strategic location also attracted the attention of Alexander’s successors, who vied among themselves for control of regional trade routes. Antiochus I, who ruled the Seleucid Empire in the third century BCE, built a 60-foot-square fort around a well on Failaka. Inside the fortress compound, one small, elegant temple has Ionic columns and a plan that is quintessentially Greek, including an east-facing altar. This was no simple import, however, but a fascinating amalgamation of designs. The column bases, for example, are of the Persian Achaemenid style, similar to those in the capital, Persepolis, burned by Alexander’s troops in the 4th century BCE.

 According to Mathilde Gelin from the French Institute of the Near East in Damascus, who is currently working at the site, this unusual pairing reflects a rare fusion of Greek and Eastern cultures. The sturdy fort eventually grew into a bustling port town, with other temples, houses, and larger fortifications, until its eventual abandonment by the first century BCE. Gelin hopes the current excavations will reveal what role the fort and settlement played in both island life and that of the wider region during a time of remarkable cultural mixing.

The history of Failaka was mentioned as far back as Strabo’s Geography in 25 CE and Arrian’s Anabasis but the Greeks were not the first people to discover it. There is evidence – though contested – that Bahrain’s ancient civilization of Dilmun had a lot to do with Failaka before the Greeks. Also, when the Greeks reached the Island, there was already a native speaking Aramaic population.

During the Hellenistic era, there was a temple dedicated to Artemis on the island; the wild animals of the island were dedicated to the Goddess with a decree for their protection. Strabo wrote that there was a temple of Apollo and an oracle of Artemis  Tauropolus(μαντεῖον Ταυροπόλου). The island is also mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium and Ptolemaeus.

Several expeditions visited to conduct archaeological work on Failaka. The first expedition was by the Danish in 1970, then the French in 1983. In 2010 an Italian team, led by Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology at University of Perugia, Gian Luca Grassigli, landed at Failaka as well. This team excavated several objects, including porcelain, glass, bronze objects, and pottery.

One of the goals of these expeditions was to finally figure out if Failaka was the same Ikaros mentioned in ancient sources. In 1970, this speculation was put to rest when an inscription of 44 lines was discovered by the Danish expedition. From then on, there has never been so much as a fleeting doubt that the Ikaros mentioned in ancient sources was and still is modern Failaka.

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It should also be noted  that both Failaka in the Persian Gulf and Icarus in the Aegean Sea housed bull cults would have made the identification all the more tempting.

During the Hellenistic era, there was a temple dedicated to Artemis on the island; the wild animals of the island were dedicated to the Goddess with a decree for their protection. Strabo wrote that there was a temple of Apollo and an oracle of Artemis  Tauropolus(μαντεῖον Ταυροπόλου). The island is also mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium and Ptolemaeus.

Edited from  archaeology.org, Wikipedia