On this post, I have chronicled the early history of archaeology on Kuwait’s Failaka Island. Here are some extraordinary artifacts that archaeologists have uncovered:

Bronze Age

I have written more about Dilmunite stamp seals here, but below is a focus on ones that were sadly stolen during the 1990 invasion. According to the Tareq Rajab Museum, “the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait began in the early morning of the 2nd of August 1990. It was common knowledge that the Iraqis had headed straight into the National Museum along the beachfront during the initial invasion, and it, like much of the rest of Kuwait, was pillaged and looted. From the very first day of the occupation, right up to the day before the liberation, there was a constant stream of trucks full of stolen goods heading back to Iraq.” According to the Failaka Seals Catalogue Vol 2, some Dilmunite stamp seals were among these artifacts taken during the war. Here are those pieces:

• KM378:  a square net with four bovid’s protome and a garbed man holding palm trees
• KM381: two bovids, a man, a monkey. It is featured in P.V. Glob’s book “Al-Bahrain.”
• KM383: two men and a gazelle atop a podium
• KM387: bovis, men, and a pole standard topped by a crescent. This stamp seal is also the cover of the 1983 Failaka/Dilmun 2nd Mill. settlements Vol 1: 1 The Stamp and Cylinder Seals by Poul Kjaerum
• KM437: a human figure with a long tiered skirt, holding a long rectangular object

Here is a particular seal that Geoffrey Bibby mentions in his work Looking for Dilmun. He writes, “it is temping to see here, in a group from a Failaka seal, man’s fight for immortality with the snake.” The animation was created by Dana Al Rashid.

Here is another seal Bibby singles out, and another animation by Dana!

And another!

These pages come from the work Glob and the Garden of Eden, published in 1999 by Flemming Højlund. The images are of common motifs seen on Dilmunite seals, some of which were animated by Dana Al Rashid.

In 1973, an American archaeological mission under the direction of Theresa Howard Carter uncovered a Kassite cylinder seal on Failaka. The Kassites, hailing from the Zagros Mountains, ruled southern Mesopotamia for over four-hundred years, from roughly 1530 to 1155 BCE. Emerging with the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire, the Kassites adopted traditional Babylonian culture and worshiped Babylonian deities together with their own. Failaka may have been a Kassite province. In a 1977 article, A.J. Ferrara writes, “the seal is made from an opaque amber agate. Inscribed on the seal are seven registers in standard Kassite lapidary style and one register of figures.”

In his 2008 article “A Possible Central Asian Origin for the Seal-Impressed Jar from the ‘Temple Tower’ at Failaka” Eric Olijdam writes, “before its work on Failaka was suspended in 1991, the French Archaeological Mission to Kuwait was engaged in the excavation of a large square building, located approximately 10 m east of the Danish and American excavations at tell 6. Due to extensive stone-robbing activities in antiquity only the massive stone-and-mortar foundations have survived and very little of the building’s superstructure. This once monumental building —with a ground plan of approximately 20 x 20 m— was erected during the City IIb period (ca. 1900 B.C.), underwent a major refurbishment and remained in use until the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C. Its layout, the thickness of the walls, and the massiveness of the foundations led the excavators to believe that this had been a multi-tiered religious building of great importance: the ‘Temple Tower’. In all probability, this edifice formed the heart of a complex, which consisted of at least four buildings. Because of its age and dimensions, identification with… Inzak —the temple (complex) of the tutelary deity of Dilmun mentioned in cuneiform inscriptions on soft-stone vessel fragments from the contemporary settlement— seems extremely likely. Only a limited number of items have been recovered from the ‘Temple Tower’. Among them were a number of fragments of a seal-impressed jar. Unfortunately, the fragments have been found in disturbed contexts so their age is to be deduced from the object itself. Initially a mid 2nd millennium origin was proposed based on a parallel with a late Mitannian seal. Even though the exact shape and dimensions of the Failaka vessel cannot be reconstructed, it is clear from the available evidence that it must have been a sizeable jar. Predatory birds with unfolded wings attacking an animal are very rare in late 3rd and 2nd millennium iconography of the Near East. The present study… will examine the possibility of a Central Asian origin for the seal-impressed jar. If accepted, it would join the already substantial corpus of Central Asian imports and imitations found throughout the northern part of the Arabian Gulf.” This French article discusses this artifact, as well. The gif was created by Dana Al Rashid.

In his work “An Inscribed Stone Slab” (1975), A.J. Ferrara writes that, “the slab had been discovered on the island of Failaka in 1953 during the bulldozing operations conducted in an area near Tell-es-Sa’ad while the Kuwaitis were preparing a road which eventually would lead from the village of Az Zor to the site. The slab… had served as part of the foundation of a farmhouse which had been situated on the find spot prior to the razing operation. The material from which it was fabricated appears to be white limestone… not indigenous to the island. The single line contains a standard inscription of Nebuchadrezzar denoting ownership. Although the slab was not found in an archaeological context, it can probably be said that its presence on the island since antiquity is genuine. Where it came from and its intended destination remain open questions.” Ferrara postulates it was ordered from Oman and intended for his main palace in Babylon, but wound up in Failaka along the way. In “The Second Millennium Settlements: The Bronze Age Architecture” Kjaerum and Højlund write that, “the existence of another cuneiform inscription found in Tell F3 possibly mentioning King Nebuchadnezzar II supports the idea that there was indeed a Neo-Babylonian residence/palace somewhere on Failaka, perhaps at Tell F6, where public buildings of former periods were located.”

Hellenistic

In the 1930s, a piece of sandstone bearing a Greek inscription was uncovered at Tell Khazneh by locals, the first Greek find on the island. Jehan Rajab tells us that the stone, “was about to be used by the islanders for building purposes, a common habit everywhere.” The inscription read, “Soteles, citizen of Athens, and the soldiers (dedicated this) to Zeus Soter (the saviour), to Poseidon, and Artemis Soteira (the saviouress).” Some scholars posit that Soteles and his men were shipwrecked and took refuge on the island, before the expeditions of Alexander and any Greco-Macedonian presence on the island. In this case, they would have left their inscription at the active Indigenous sanctuary on the island, which was dedicated to a goddess we will likely never be able to completely confirm. Mary Ann Tétreault writes, “Failaka’s special connection to early deities continued into the era of the Greeks. It is reputed to have been the refuge of the fourth-century BCE Greek traveler Sotelos and his companions, who were saved from sinking by this island refuge and who left an engraved stela dedicated to Zeus and Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon and patron of hunting.” Safwat Ali Nourel-Din writes, “the words imply that the writer of this inscription and his companion had survived a shipwreck, so they had offered this writing to that holy island which was believed to be the dwelling of Poseidon, the sea god.” In Failaka Seals Catalogue, Helene David-Cuny and Johanne Azpeitia write, “Failaka… saved the Greek traveller Sotelos and his companions from sinking. Shortly after this first testimony of Greek visitors, Failaka gets some permanent residents from the Hellenistic empire.” Rather than being shipwrecked, some scholars believe that Soteles was commander of the military garrison on Ikaros. Joseph Naveh writes, “one may assume that Soteles the Athenian was commander of the Seleucid military garrison on Ikaros.”

The Ikaros Stele (also called the Ikaros Stone or Stone of Ikaros and the Ikaros Inscription) dates to the late 3rd century BCE, during the reign of Antiochus III, the sixth ruler of the Seleucid Empire. It was recently added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. Lise Hannestad writes that the stele is, “probably the best known and undoubtedly the most discussed object found in the Danish excavations at the fortress.” According to Charlotte Roueché and Susan M. Sherwin-White, this, “rectangular stele… [was] found in [1960] by the Danish excavators… to the east of Temple A. The two documents recorded on this stele are a letter from a Seleucid official, Ikadion, to his subordinate, Anaxarchos, and a covering letter from Anaxarchos to the inhabitants of Ikaros.” Its discovery confirmed Failaka as the Ikaros mentioned in the sources of Arrian, Strabo, and other authors. Hassan Ashkanani writes that, “within the inscriptions, scholars have discerned some aspects of the social organization of the island’s communities, such as: how the local government recorded its politics; the renovation of the temple, property rights and taxation; and the political function of gymnastics games, entertainment, and offerings.”

1960: from Tareq Rajab’s work Glimpses of Kuwait, in which it is captioned, “the Ikaros Stone was a dedication stone found near the portico of the Temple of Artemis where it was thrown when the citadel was sacked. This is the largest and most important single object found from the Greek period in the Gulf. It contains 44 lines written in Greek which support the historical references claiming that the island of Failaka was named Ikaros by Alexander the Great after an island of the same name in the Aegean sea”

In his work “The Sacred Enclosure in the Early Hellenistic Period” (1989), Kristian Jeppesen writes that within Failaka’s Temple A, “three different kinds of building akroteria have been found… tooled to fit the angle of the pedimental apex. The decoration consists of a palmette with 8 curved leaves around a central leaf.” The three pieces matched in size are known as EC, EF, and AD. On AD, “traces of red paint survive on the background.” In his work “Failaka Island in the Postcards” (2018), Hasan Ashkanani writes, “the three palmettes, collectively known as the Akroteria, have become a symbol of national pride to the Kuwaiti people. The palmette motif from this site has permeated Kuwaiti culture and can be seen in a variety of settings.”

In 1960, Danish archaeologists unearthed a hoard of coins in one of the dwellings at F5 [Tell Sa’id] near the Hellenistic temples. The hoard was sent to Denmark to be analyzed. One coin is dated to the reign of Antiochus III, who ruled the Seleucid Empire from 223 to 187 BCE. In addition to depicting the king, the coin also shows Apollo, the Seleucid patron god. Its stylistic features pointed to Susa as the minting site. Twelve other coins closely resemble this Seleucid one in preservation and date. In a KUML article from 1960, Otto Mørkholm writes, “there is a representation of the hero Herakles, bearing the lion skin which he wore after his victory over the Nemean lion… on the reverse Olympian Zeus is enthroned, bearing on his outstretched right hand his sacred bird, the eagle. In his left hand he holds a long spectre.” He proposes that these coins may have been minted by the Gerrhaeans, a prosperous trading people whose capital lay on the Arabian mainland. Antiochus III led an expedition against Gerrha in 205 BCE.

Another coin found by early excavators is a rare silver drachma from the Kingdom of Ma’in in Southern Arabia, attributed to a ruler named Abyatha and dated to around 150 BCE. This coin is an imitation of Alexander’s types, but had its inscription in Old Arabian script rather than Greek.

In 1984, French archaeologists working at Tell Khazneh uncovered another coin hoard. This hoard consisted of 27 silver coins, all tetradrachms of Alexander the Great type, likely dating to around 290 BCE. Like the coins found by the Danish team, Antiochous III is shown on one side. But on the other the goddess of wisdom Athena and Apollo. These different hoards illustrate Failaka’s close economic and cultural connections to the eastern Seleucid provinces and Arabian trade networks during the Hellenistic period.

This terracotta of a “fragment of a mould for a male head” was uncovered in the workshop at F4. In his work The Terracotta Figurines (1982) Hans Erik Mathiesen writes, “this mould was described… as having a striking likeness to the usual portraits of Alexander [the Great].” He continues, “it is possible that we should view the relief as a portrayal of Helios [the personification of the sun]. It is, however, possible that Alexander, like many of his successors, was associated with Helios. Most likely the mould is for making Alexander heads. The interpretation as Helios or Alexander-Helios seems doubtful, although it cannot be entirely rejected.”

This terracotta of a “female head wearing a high Kalathoi” was uncovered in F5 in front of Temple B. Mathiesen writes, “the woman is wearing a high kalathos, which has the form of a bowl. She has a pronounced double chin and the neck is fleshy with ‘Venus-rings.’ The head is an incense-burner, thymiateria, the incense being burnt in the bowl on top.  It is presumably to be dated around 200 B.C. It possibly represented… some chthonic goddess.” Chthonic deities inhabited the underworld and were associated with death or fertility.

This terracotta of “part of a draped female statuette” was uncovered in F5 in a dwelling. Mathiesen writes, “the woman is dressed in a chiton buttoned on the shoulders. The face is softly modelled with rather blurred eyes, the neck is long. Female figurines in chiton… are in vogue in Tanagra in the later part of the fourth century and in Early Hellenistic times.” In some works, including “Archaeological Investigations in Failaka Island 1958 – 1963,” published by the Department of Antiquities and Museums, she is likened to Aphrodite. Mathiesen makes no mention of that. He does, however, speculate that another artifact (no. 94 – uncovered in F4, a mould for a female figurine) might represent Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. You can read more about the goddesses of Failaka here.

This terracotta of a male head was uncovered in F5 in a dwelling. Mathiesen writes that it, “probably represents a youthful unbearded Heracles crowned with an olive or a laurel wreath.” Herakles (Hercules to the Romans) was a heroic son of Zeus in Greek mythology, famous for his strength. Michael Rice says that Gilgamesh, the archetypal hero, may be the inspiration for Herakles. There may have been a Herakles cult on Failaka Island. Joan Breton Connelly writes, “the worship of Herakles in the Greek East is well attested. The royal Macedonian claim of descent from the hero is celebrated in the coinage of Alexander the Great… Alexander’s special devotion to Herakles along the campaign routes is well attested in the literary sources which report his frequent stops to offer sacrifice to his famous ‘ancestor’.” In addition to terracottas, coins bearing the likeness of Herakles have also been uncovered on the island, which you can read about above.

As you can see, the terracottas above are quite famous and appear in many publications. Here are a couple that don’t always, but which I find interesting. The first terracotta below was uncovered in F5. Mathiesen writes, “because of the bad state of preservation several interpretations of the topic represented in the mould are possible. If the hand with the rod-shaped object is in fact holding a sword, the woman to the left could be fleeing from a pursuer threatening her, and Menelaos and Helen or Ajax and Cassandra were possibly depicted. However, the person with the sword might equally well be a female, and in that case the figures could be maenads. It is perhaps also possible that the woman was an Amazon archer about to shoot an arrow and the swordsman a Greek warrior.” The second was found at Tell Khazneh. Jean-François Salles writes, “the very small and triangular head shows a muzzle… we would like it to be a jerboa, a small animal of the desert quite common on Failaka, but it might be a mouse as well.”

In this article they write, “after the habitation of the small island of Failaka in the northern Arab-Persian Gulf during the Bronze Age… Neo- Babylonian and Achaemenid periods… the island became an important Hellenistic settlement of the Seleucid Kingdoms. During the 1984-1988 excavation campaigns of the combined French Archaeological Mission and the Kuwait National Museum, a series of twelve human skeletons were found to be interred among the ruins of a (pre-Hellenistic) Bronze Age public building on a tell at site F6. Apparently, the building had been looted for re-usable stones needed for Hellenistic construction activities, e.g. the building of the nearby fortress. Afterwards, the remaining foundation of the inner wall had been used to place a jar-burial, while the remaining pits in the outside buttress had been used for earth burials : two single graves, a double grave, and a common grave for seven individuals.” They tell us that the Jar Burial appears to be a “civilian internment of a worn out elderly man” dating to around 181 BCE.

Medieval

In her work, “Archaeological evidence of an early Islamic monastery in the centre of al-Qusur” (2021) Julie Bonnéric writes, “the excavation of a large mudbrick church in 1988 and 1989 by the French mission revealed the Christian nature of the site. At the centre, a cross was framed with geometric and vegetal decoration… this area might have been highlighted to commemorate the, probably important, person buried in the wall.” In his PhD thesis “The Archaeology of Kuwait” (2011) Majed Almutairi writes that, “the cross at al-Qusur… is surrounded by a frieze, which contains vine leaves and rosettes. This type of floral decoration is reminiscent of Hellenistic decoration found the Mediterranean.” I was told that, unfortunately, the artifact was destroyed during the looting that took place during the 1990 invasion.