Page 119 - The Tigris Expedition

The Tigris Expedition

The most remarkable piece which the Danes dug up on Failaka
was a round stamp seal that could only have come from the distant
Indus Valley.1 It was thin and flat, with a high boss, and bore on its
face an inscription in the still undeciphcred Indus Valley script.
Whoever brought it to this island had been in touch with people of
the great civilisation that flourished on the banks of the Indus river
and along the coasts of present Pakistan and adjacent India in
Sumerian times. As suddenly as it had appeared in full bloom with
the magnificent cities of Mohcnjo-Daro and Harappa about 2500
bc, just as suddenly and inexplicably had this mighty civilisation
bordering on the Indian Ocean disappeared completely about
1500 bc.
Although Alexander the Great had built his ships in the Indus
Valley, he came too late to have brought the inscribed Indus seal to
Failaka. The Indus script, like the entire cities of Mohenjo-Daro and
Harappa, was completely buried and forgotten at the time of
Alexander and only rediscovered by the archaeologist’s shovel a
few decades ago. Thus in the period between 2500 and 1500 bc,
Failaka Island had contact not only with Bahrain but with a civilised
nation outside the gulf area. People able to read and write in their
own characters had ploughed these waters long before literacy
spread from the Middle East to Greece and the rest of Europe.
The men on board Tigris knew that shortly before we set sail
down the river I had gone to Kuwait hoping to visit Failaka. Their
interest in what I had seen was clearly genuine now that the island
seemed inescapable. In fact, on that visit to Kuwait I had never got
as far as the island, although it was only a three-hour boat trip away
from the capital. Failaka even had a small harbour with open
entrance on the north-west coast, facing Kuwait, whereas all other
coasts, including the east side which we were approaching, were
blocked by reefs and shallows. But before I found the ferry I called
on Kuwait’s Director of Antiquities and Museums, Ibrahim A1
Baghly, who led me to the local expert on Failaka archaeology,
Imran Abdo, the Antiquity Superintendent. I got no further. What I
had come for was no longer on the island. Abdo brought his keys
and opened glass doors and cases.
Sure enough, here were those precious stamp seals with
Sumerian and Babylonian mythical scenes incised upon them, used
for sealing the cargo of merchant sailors frequenting Failaka in
epochs lost from written history. Among them I caught sight of a
motif more precious to me than that of any legendary encounter
between Sumerian demi-gods and kings. A ship! A sickle-shaped

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