Icaros
Icaros (mod. Failaka),an island off Kuwait, at the mouth of an ancient course of the Euphrates river. It was settled from the third millennium bc, and visited by an expedition sent by Alexander the Great to the Persian Gulf (Strabo 16. 3. 2): Ikaros might be the Hellenization (i.e. Greek version) of a local name. The Seleucids built a fortress on Failaka, in use from the early 3rd to the mid-2nd cent. bc: it is 60 m. (200 ft.) square, and two temples were excavated inside the walls; two other sanctuaries were found outside. Greek material and inscriptions attest a Macedonian settlement which probably served as a military—and naval—outpost on the maritime route to India. After the fall of the Seleucid empire, the island temporarily came under Characenian domination in the 1st cent. ad. A Christian church of the 6th cent. has recently been excavated.
Jean-François Salles
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