msmooretravels

Scholars of Failaka Island

I have detailed books and articles about Kuwait’s Failaka Island on this post. Here is some information about a few of the specific scholars who have contributed to the study of Failaka:

Freya Stark (1893 – 1993) was a British travel writer. Stark first visited Kuwait in 1932, and then again in 1937. According to Malise Ruthven’s work “Freya Stark in Iraq and Kuwait” (1994), “on her second visit to Kuwait five years later, Freya was taken by the British Resident, Gerald de Gaury, to the island of Faylakah, a two-hour crossing by launch. They were accompanied by Yusuf al-Mutawwa, a gentle old man.” Stark’s description of Failaka in her work “Baghdad Sketches” (1937) is incredibly lovely and a must-read for those interested in the island.

Peter Vilhelm Glob (1911 – 1985) or “P.V. Glob” was a Danish archaeologist. You can see a short video about him here. In 1953, he headed Danish archaeological expeditions to Bahrain with Geoffrey Bibby. In 1956, Glob and Bibby opened up archaeological excavations on Qatar, in 1958 on Kuwait’s Failaka Island, and in 1959 in the UAE. In 1968, Glob published “l-Bahrain: De danske ekspeditioner til oldtidens Dilmun.” You can see a digitized version in the Archive of Mesopotamian Archaeological Reports. In 1971, the scholarly journal Dilmun: Journal of the Bahrain Historical and Archaeological Society was launched–you can see the digitized copies here. The edition number 17 (1994-45) provides a bibliography of sources on archaeology in Bahrain. I’ve put an image below of Glob’s works.

Geoffrey Bibby (1917 – 2001) was a British archaeologist, who spent much of his life in Denmark. His obituary in the New York Times calls him “the Discoverer of Gilgamesh’s Island.” They write, “in the mythology of Sumeria, Dilmun was a secret island where the epic hero Gilgamesh went in search of eternal life. In 1953, Mr. Bibby and Prof. Peter Vilhelm Glob, a colleague at Aarhus University in Denmark, set off with a team to search for the mysterious realm. After several years of expeditions, Mr. Bibby and his colleagues verified the existence of Dilmun, a ‘considerable city,’ under the capital of Bahrain, Manama.” Between 1958 and 1963, Bibby and Glob excavated on Failaka Island and uncovered ancient Dilmunite and Greek sites, which he discusses in his well-known 1969 work Looking for Dilmun. In Essa Amin’s obituary on Bibby, in the 20th issue (July 2001) of the scholarly journal mentioned above, Amin writes, “like the most skillful detective story writer allows his reader to share in each piece of new intelligence and the new puzzles that each presents… we have lost a pioneer, a great friend, a man with a spade in his hand and a man with great love for Bahrain and its people.” Below are different editions of Looking for Dilmun.

The images below come from Looking for Dilmun

Michael Rice (1928 – 2013) was a British scholar. According to his obituary from the Telegraph, “his lifelong passion for the Arab world, and in Egypt in particular, was prompted, he said, when as a small boy in 1939 he heard the haunting sound of Tutankhamun’s trumpet being played on the radio and wanted to know its history and where it came from. By the early 1980s the sultans and emirs of many oil-rich states in the Gulf were… bringing in foreign specialists to restore… and unearth monuments and build museums. Rice and his company designed the national museums in Oman and in Riyadh.. in Qatar they designed a museum compound including an old palace.” During his lifetime, Rice published many books, including:

Theresa Howard Carter (1928 – 2015) was an American archaeologist. According to her obituary, “Dr. Carter represents one of the last of a generation of intrepid, pioneering women archaeologists who excavated their way across the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and North Africa.” During part of the Iran-Iraq War (1980 to 88), she was excavating on Failaka. “The fighting was less than 80 miles away, but she kept digging in the ruins of a Greek settlement more than 2,000 years old. She said she wished she could work there again, but wonders when.” Her works (or pieces that refer to her discoveries) include:

Jehan Rajab (1935 – 2015) was a British-Kuwaiti author. She was married to Tareq Rajab; together, they co-founded the New English School and the Tareq Rajab Museum. Tareq was Kuwait’s first Director of Antiquities and Museums. In the early 1960s, they lived on Failaka during the excavation seasons. Jehan and Tareq both wrote several books. Her following works are essential readings for anyone curious about the island.

Khaled Salem Muhammad: one of my clear deficits when studying Failaka is my inability to read Arabic. This website has compiled various Arabic-language books about Failaka, which you can see below. Muhammad is a scholar who has written many books on Failaka that are often cited in bibliographies of other works on the island. In the article Spatial Assessment of pre-20th-century settlements on Failaka Island by Mohamed Aziz and O. Alotaibi they include a map by Muhammad for which they say, “The Ancient Features Map, by the researcher Khaled Salem Muhammad. This map dates back to the year 1958. Muhammad projected different sites on the basis of his own experience with the sites — as a peninsula national, in collaboration with elderly inhabitants of the island, and following a comprehensive field survey of the peninsula’s territories and features.” According to the bibliography of Aziz and Alotaibi’s article, Muhammad’s works include:

  • Muhammad, K. S. 1977,  The Island of Failaka: A Historical Perspective between the Greeks and the Twentieth Century. Al-Nahda Magazine, Issue 523, October, p. 45, Kuwait.
  • Muhammad, K. S. 1985,  Scenes of Life in Ancient Times on the Island of Failaka. Al Rubayan Publishing
  • Muhammad, K. S. 1993, The Island of Failaka: A Historical/Social Perspective, 2nd edition. Dar Al-Kutob Publishing
  • Muhammad, K. S. 1996,  Pages from the Past of the Island of Failaka, 3rd edition. Dar  Al-Kutob Publishing
  • Muhammad, K. S. 2000, Kuwait in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Incidents and News, 2nd edition. Dar Al-Oruba Publishing and Distribution, Kuwait.
  • Muhammad, K. S. 2006, Failaka Island: The Most Famous Kuwaiti Island, History and Heritage.

Flemming Højlund: according to this book summary, Højlund is the, “former Head of Oriental Department at Moesgaard Museum, Denmark; directed excavations in Bahrain, Qatar and lately on Failaka Island in Kuwait (2008-2017); published numerous articles and monographs on Arabian Gulf archaeology; and organized exhibitions on the history and culture of the Gulf at Moesgaard Museum, at the Bahrain National Museum and in Abu Dhabi.” His works are quite extensive, here are just a few:

Hasan Jassim Ashkanani: according to French Research Centre of the Arabian Peninsula, “Hasan J. Ashkanani is an assistant professor of anthropological archaeology and a curator of Anthropology and Archaeology Museum and Laboratory in the department of Sociology, Social Work, and Anthropology at Kuwait University.” During the winter months, he typically leads tours to Failaka–you can get the information through his Instagram page. His works include:

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