Failaka is the name of an island, and the large settlement and sanctuary of the south Arabian civilization in what is now Kuwait, during the 1st century AD. Failaka was an island trading stop on the sea route between Mesopotamia and other civilizations on the Arabian Gulf, occupied from about 3000 BC-400 AD. T. Geoffrey Bibby excavated at Failaka in the 1960s while he was seeking the ancient legendary civilization of Dilmun, considered now modern day Bahrain. Dilmun was a powerful trading point between the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia during the second millinnium BC, and is thought to be the place mentioned as the Garden of Eden in the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic. Most recently, investigations by the Kuwaiti-Slovak Archaeological Mission on Failaka have been focused at the Bronze Age site of Al-Khidr, a Dilmun culture occupation that is located along the western shore of an important harbor on Failaka.
- Failaka
- Kuwaiti-Slovak Archaeological Mission
- Dilmun, from Ancient History at About
- Gilgamesh Epic
- Archaeology of Kuwait
- Babylon
Comments
The article stated:”Failaka was an island trading stop on the sea route between Mesopotamia and other civilizations on the Arabian Gulf, occupied from about 3000 BC-400 AD.” Actually Failaka’s earliest documented occupation was after 2000 B.C. when the sealevel dropped in the Gulf. Bahrain’s oldest settlement Qal’at al-Bahrain was founded circa 2200 B.C. Despite the appearance of Dilmun in texts circa 3300 B.C. at Uruk, and 2300 B.C. at Lagash no archaeological evidence exists of this period for the city of Dilmun either at Failaka or Bahrain. That is to say for the first 1000 years of Dilmun’s appearance in Sumerian texts, 3300-2300 B.C. there is no archaeological evidence of the city of Dilmun on the islands of Failaka or Bahrain.
Isn’t that interesting? So was Dilmun a legend, or likely located elsewhere? I would like to follow up on this, if you have any references I could look at.
Kris
I believe the work is still going on. So, who knows what the excavation teams might find next?
Beside Failaka, there is a recent find on the main land of Kuwait, to the NW of Failaka in Subbiyah peninsula, and for the first glance as reports say, the finds are related to the Ubaid culture. Even in Failaka itself, there had been finds related to the Ubaid culture. Ubaid culture is said to be an earlier culture initiated on the eastern coast of the Arabian peninsula by settlers but did not initiate a civilization. It is supposed to be the predecessor of the Sumerian civilization, which existed before the arrival of semites to the area.
Dilmun is supposedly mentioned in Sumerian texts as well as in later civilizations that followed the Sumerians.
Please check:
http://www.crystalinks.com/mesopotamia.html
Kris asked about further info on the lack of archaeological evidence for a “city” of Dilmun before 2200 BC. Just Google “dilmun wikipedia,” and the Wikipedia will provide further data via its links at the end of its Dilmun article.