Kuwait Bay

Jōn al Kuwayt (Arabic: جون الكويت, Gulf Arabic pronunciation: /d͡ʒoːn‿ɪlkweːt/), also known as Kuwait Bay, is a bay in Kuwait. It is the head of the Persian Gulf. Kuwait City lies on a tip of the bay.

History

Following the post-glacial flooding of the Persian Gulf basin, debris from the Tigris–Euphrates river formed a substantial delta, creating most of the land in present-day Kuwait and establishing the present coastlines.^[1] Historically, northern Kuwait was part of ancient Mesopotamia.^[2] One of the earliest evidence of human habitation in southern Kuwait dates back 8000 B.C. where Mesolithic tools were found in Burgan.^[3] The Neolithic inhabitants of Kuwait were among the world's earliest maritime traders.^[4] During the Ubaid period (6500 BC), Kuwait was the central site of interaction between the peoples of Mesopotamia and Neolithic Eastern Arabia,^{[5][6][7][8][9]} including Bahra 1 and site H3 in Subiya.^{[5][10][11][12]} One of the world's earliest reed-boats was discovered at site H3 dating back to the Ubaid period.^[13]

In 4000 BC until 2000 BC, Kuwait Bay was home to the Dilmun civilization.^{[14][15][16][17]} Dilmun's control of the bay of Kuwait included mainland Akkaz,^[14] Umm an Namil,^[14][18] and Failaka.^[14][17] At its peak in 2000 BC, the Dilmun empire controlled the trade routes from Mesopotamia to India and the Indus Valley civilization. Dilmun's commercial power began to decline after 1800 BC. Piracy flourished throughout the region during Dilmun's decline. After 600 BC, the Babylonians added Dilmun to their empire.

At the time of Alexander the Great, the mouth of the Euphrates River was located in northern Kuwait.^[19][20] The Euphrates river flowed directly into the Persian Gulf via Khor Subiya which was a river channel at the time.^[19][20] Failaka was located 15 kilometers from the mouth of the Euphrates river.^[19][20] By the first century BC, the Khor Subiya river channel dried out completely.^[19][20]

During the Achaemenid period (c. 550‒330 BC), Kuwait Bay was repopulated.^[21] There are Aramaic inscriptions that testify Achaemenid presence.^[22] In 127 BC, Kuwait was part of the Parthian Empire and the kingdom of Characene was established around Teredon in present-day Kuwait. Characene was centered in the region encompassing southern Mesopotamia,^[23] Characene coins were discovered in Akkaz, Umm an Namil, and Failaka.^[24][25] A busy Parthian era Characene commercial station existed in Kuwait.^[26] The earliest recorded mention of Kuwait was in 150 AD in the geographical treatise Geography by Greek scholar Ptolemy.^[27] Ptolemy mentioned the Bay of Kuwait as Hieros Kolpos (Sacer Sinus in the Latin versions).^[27]

Most of present-day Kuwait Bay is still archaeologically unexplored.^[5][3] According to several famous archaeologists and geologists, Kuwait was likely the original location of the Pishon River which watered the Garden of Eden.^{[28][29][30][31]} Juris Zarins argued that the Garden of Eden was situated at the head of the Persian Gulf (present-day Kuwait), where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers run into the sea, from his research on this area using information from many different sources, including LANDSAT images from space. His suggestion about the Pishon River was supported by James A. Sauer of the American Center of Oriental Research.^[32] Sauer made an argument from geology and history that Pishon River was the now-defunct Kuwait River.^[32] With the aid of satellite photos, Farouk El-Baz traced the dry channel from Kuwait up the Wadi Al-Batin.^{[28][33][30][29]}

See also

• Geography of Kuwait

Notes

1. "The Post-glacial Flooding of the Persian Gulf, animation and images". University of California, Santa Barbara.
2. Macmillan, Palgrave (2016). "Kuwait". The Statesman's Yearbook. The Stateman's Yearbook. pp. 727–731. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-68398-7_258. ISBN 978-1-137-44008-2.
3. "The Archaeology of Kuwait" (PDF). Cardiff University. pp. 1–427.
4. Robert Carter (2011). "The Neolithic origins of seafaring in the Arabian Gulf". Archaeology International. 24 (3): 44. doi:10.5334/ai.0613.
5. Robert Carter (2019). "The Mesopotamian frontier of the Arabian Neolithic: A cultural borderland of the sixth–fifth millennia BC". Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy. 31 (1): 69–85. doi:10.1111/aae.12145. S2CID 213877028.
6. Robert Carter (25 October 2010). Maritime Interactions in the Arabian Neolithic: The Evidence from H3, As-Sabiyah, an Ubaid-Related Site in Kuwait. BRILL. ISBN 9789004163591.
7. Robert Carter (2006). "Boat remains and maritime trade in the Persian Gulf during the sixth and fifth millennia BC" (PDF). Antiquity. 80 (307): 52–63. doi:10.1017/s0003598x0009325x. S2CID 162674282.
8. Robert Carter. "Maritime Interactions in the Arabian Neolithic: The Evidence from H3, As-Sabiyah, an Ubaid-Related Site in Kuwait".
9. "How Kuwaitis lived more than 8,000 years ago". Kuwait Times. 2014-11-25.
10. Robert Carter (2002). "Ubaid-period boat remains from As-Sabiyah: excavations by the British Archaeological Expedition to Kuwait". Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies. 32: 13–30. JSTOR 41223721.
11. Robert Carter; Graham Philip. "Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and integration in the late prehistoric societies of the Middle East" (PDF).
12. "PAM 22". pcma.uw.edu.pl.
13. Weekes, Richard (31 March 2001). "Secrets of world's oldest boat are discovered in Kuwait sands". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
14. "Kuwait's archaeological sites reflect human history & civilizations (2:50 – 3:02)". Ministry of Interior News. Archived from the original on 2021-12-21.
15. Glassner, Jean-Jacques; Herron, Donald M. (1990). The Invention of Cuneiform: Writing in Sumer. JHU Press. p. 7. ISBN 9780801873898. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
16. Nyrop, Richard F. (2008). Area Handbook for the Persian Gulf States. Wildside Press LLC. p. 11. ISBN 9781434462107. From about 4000 to 2000 B.C. the civilization of Dilmun dominated 250 miles of the eastern coast of Arabia from present-day Kuwait to Bahrain and extended sixty miles into the interior to the oasis of Hufuf (see fig. 2). {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
17. Calvet, Yves (1989). "Failaka and the Northern Part of Dilmun". Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies. 19: 5–11. JSTOR 41223078.
18. Connan, Jacques; Carter, Robert (2007). "A geochemical study of bituminous mixtures from Failaka and Umm an-Namel (Kuwait), from the Early Dilmun to the Early Islamic period". Jacques Connan, Robert Carter. 18 (2): 139–181. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0471.2007.00283.x.
19. Andreas P. Parpas (2016). Naval and Maritime Activities of Alexander the Great in South Mesopotamia and the Gulf. pp. 62–117.
20. Hermann Gasche, ed. (2004). The Persian Gulf shorelines and the Karkheh, Karun and Jarrahi Rivers: A Geo-Archaeological Approach. pp. 19–54.
21. Bonnéric, Julie (2021). "Guest editors' foreword". Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy. 32: 1–5. doi:10.1111/aae.12195. S2CID 243182467.
22. Andreas P. Parpas. "Hellenistic Ikaros-Failaka" (PDF). p. 5.
23. Kaveh Farrokh (2007). Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War. Bloomsbury USA. p. 124. ISBN 9781846031083. With Babylon and Seleucia secured, Mehrdad turned to Charax in southern Mesopotamia (modern south Iraq and Kuwait).
24. Julian Reade, ed. (1996). Indian Ocean In Antiquity. Routledge. p. 275. ISBN 9781136155314.
25. "Hellenism in the East" (PDF). Amelie Kuhrt, Susan Sherwin-White. 1987. To the south of Characene, on Failaka, the north wall of the fort was pushed forward, before occupation ceased around 100 BC.
26. Leonardo Gregoratti. "A Parthian Harbour in the Gulf: the Characene". p. 216.
27. . Archived from the original on 23 March 2014. Retrieved 21 July 2013.
28. "Signs of Ancient River". The New York Times. 30 March 1993.
30. James K. Hoffmeier, The Archaeology of the Bible, Lion Hudson: Oxford, England, 34-35
31. Carol A. Hill, The Garden of Eden: A Modern Landscape.
32. Sauer, James A. (July–August 1996). "The River Runs Dry: Creation Story Preserves Historical Memory". Biblical Archaeology Review. Vol. 22, no. 4. Biblical Archaeology Society. pp. 52–54, 57, 64. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
33. Farouk El-Baz, "A river in the desert", Discover, July 1993.

29°26′N 47°56′E / 29.433°N 47.933°E / 29.433; 47.933