The ethnicity of the people of Tarut Island Tarut island was strategically located as a link between the East and the West. It was a place for merchants from all nations and races to meet throughout history. Major questions about Tarut Island are: Who were the first settlers? Who immigrated and settled on the island? Did they leave valuable artifacts? These questions are an enigma and are not fully clear to archaeologists and histories. They have not discovered satisfactory answers to these questions and hope to reveal more answers in the future. Archaeologists have discovered old artifacts dating back to the Stone Age and Bronze Age, but they have not been able to identify which people left them and where they came from. They can only designate artifacts by the archeological age from which they came. The genetic origins of Tarut's people contain a mix of different races: Mongolian, Caucasian and Negro who intermarried throughout history. Some of them have white skin and some have dark, some have curly hair and some have straight, they have different hair colors, different eye colors, different beard thicknesses, etc. These Semitic peoples, who are a mix of three races, migrated to the Eastern Arabia Peninsula from the North. The first Semitics to settle on Tarut Island were the Phoenicians, who descended from the Canaanites. They later immigrated to the Mediterranean coast. History records that the Persians forced groups of Roman prisoners to live on the Gulf Coast and in southern Iraq. The main Arabic tribes who survived on the Eastern Arabian Peninsula before Christ are Abdel Al-Qays, Kebe, Iyad, and Abu Kion

History If you would like to look at the deep past of Eastern Saudi Arabia, your mind will go to a small island in the Persian Gulf. Present time has forgotten it and its treasures and it needs to be dusted off. When you are walking in its old villages, you will see adjoining houses that are built from mud and stone with narrow alleyways, too. Their presence is in the distant past. When looking at the houses, you draw memories from generation after generation that have long passed. This island is Tarut. Tarut or Tarout means goodness and beauty in the Semitic languages. Historians differ on the correct name for it. The name variations include "TARO","THARRO" or "TWARO" in Greek literature, including the famous "Ptolemy’s Geography". Additionally, the town’s name is recorded as "TARU" in historical Chinese texts and "Ashtarut " in Arabic history. Today, however, most of the new researchers argue that the correct name is "Ashtarut " because the Canaanites and Phoenicians, who originally lived there, idolized the beauty of the town and called it Ashtarut. The term Ashtarut is also very similar to the new name Tarut , if we delete the first syllable. We cannot separate the history of Tarut Island from the Eastern Arabian Peninsula's history. Tarut Island has survived for thousands of years and its antiquities prove that it was inhabited since the Stone Age, approximately 5000 B.C. It passed away several civilizations ago and was part of many Empires and countries. Some of them were before Christ, such as Dilmun, the Akkadian country, the Assyrian country, and the Persian Empire. Others were after Christ such as the Persian Empire, the Islamic country, the Portuguese colony, and the Ottoman Empire. Now, Tarut Island belongs to Qatif city in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia. It was a place of economic migration because of its important strategic location and it was a trade center between Indian contraries, the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq. In addition, it has a lot of natural resources, including pearl fisheries and date farms.