Ikaros (Failaka Island)

Ikaros (Greek: Ἴκαρος) was the Hellenistic name of the Kuwaiti Failaka Island, in the Persian Gulf.[1] Failaka is located 50 km southeast of the spot where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers empty into the Persian Gulf.[2] For thousands of years, the island has been a strategic prize to control the lucrative trade that passed up and down the Perisan Gulf.[3][2] Failaka Island has been a strategic location since the rise of the Sumerian city-state of Ur.[3]

Ikaros
Shown within Kuwait
Ikaros (Failaka Island) (Near East)
LocationKuwait
RegionMesopotamia
Coordinates29°26′20″N 48°20′00″E (approximate)

Having returned from his Indian campaign to Persia, Alexander the Great ordered the island to be called Icarus, after the Icarus island in the Aegean Sea.[4] This was likely a Hellenization of the local name Akar (Aramaic ´KR), derived from the ancient bronze-age toponym Agarum.[5] Another suggestion is that the name Ikaros was influenced by the local É-kara temple, dedicated to the Babylonian sun-god Shamash. That both Failaka and the Aegean Icarus housed bull cults would have made the identification tempting all the more.[6][7]

During Hellenistic times, there was a temple of Artemis on the island.[4][8][9] The wild animals on the island were dedicated to goddess and no one should harm them.[4] Strabo wrote that on the island there was a temple of Apollo and an oracle of Artemis (Tauropolus) (μαντεῖον Ταυροπόλου).[10] The island is also mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium[11] and Ptolemaeus.[12]

Remains of the settlement include a large Hellenistic fort and two Greek temples.[13] Failaka was also a trading post (emporion) of the kingdom of Characene.

See also

References
  1. J. Hansamans, Charax and the Karkhen, Iranica Antiquitua 7 (1967) page 21-58
  2. "Failaka Island, Kuwait". Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 4 April 2013.
  3. "Failaka Island – Silk Roads Programme". UNESCO.
  4. Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, §7.20
  5. Steffen Terp Laursen: Royal Mounds of A'ali in Bahrain: The Emergence of Kingship in Early Dilmun (pp. 340–343). ISD LLC, 2017. ISBN 9788793423190.
  6. Michael Rice: The Archaeology of the Arabian Gulf (p. 208). Routledge, 2002. ISBN 9781134967933.
  7. Jean-Jacques Glassner: "Dilmun, Magan and Meluhha" (1988); Indian Ocean In Antiquity (pp. 240-243), edited by Julian Reade. Kegan Paul International, 1996. Reissued by Routledge in 2013. ISBN 9781136155314.
  8. Dionysius of Alexandria, Guide to the Inhabited World, §600
  9. Aelian, Characteristics of Animals, §11.9
  10. Strabo, Geography, §16.3.2
  11. Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnica, §I329.12
  12. Ptolemaeus, Geography, §6.7.47
  13. George Fadlo Hourani, John Carswell, Arab Seafaring: In the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times Princeton University Press,page 131
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.