Ikaros (Failaka Island)
Ikaros was the Hellenistic name of the Failaka Island, in the Persian Gulf.
Having returned from his Indian campaign to Persia, Alexander the Great ordered the island to be called Icarus, after the Icarus island in the Aegean Sea. This was likely a Hellenization of the local name Akar, derived from the ancient bronze-age toponym Agarum. Another suggestion is that the name Ikaros was influenced by the local É-kara temple, dedicated to the Babylonian sun-god Shamash. That both Failaka and the Aegean Icarus housed bull cults would have made the identification tempting all the more.
During Hellenistic times, there was a temple of Artemis on the island. The wild animals on the island were dedicated to goddess and no one should harm them. Strabo wrote that on the island there was a temple of Apollo and an oracle of Artemis . The island is also mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium and Ptolemaeus.
Remains of the settlement include a large Hellenistic fort and two Greek temples.
It may have been a trading post of the kingdom of Characene.
