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Gertrude Bell (1868-1926)
Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell was born into a wealthy
family at Washington New Hall in what was then County Durham. Initially
home-schooled, she then attended school in London and graduated with a
first-class degree in Modern History from Oxford University. Thereafter she
travelled in Europe and also spent several months in Bucharest and in Tehran.
Her travels continued with two round-the-world trips: one in 1897-1898 and one
in 1902-1903.
From the turn of the century, Gertrude developed a love of
the Arab peoples - she learned their languages, investigated their
archaeological sites and travelled deep into the desert. This intimate
knowledge of the country and its tribes made her a target of British
Intelligence recruitment during the First World War. At the end of the war,
Gertrude focussed on the future of Mesopotamia and was to become a powerful
force in Iraqi politics, becoming a kingmaker when her preferred choice, Faisal
(son of Husain, the Sharif of Mecca and King of the Hijaz) was crowned King of
the state of Iraq in August 1921.
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Gertrude's first love remained archaeology and, as Honorary
Director of Antiquities in Iraq, she established the Iraq Museum in Baghdad.
Her 1905 expedition through the Syrian Desert to Asia Minor was published as
The Desert and the Sown and her study, in 1907, of Binbirkilise on the Kara Dag
mountain was published as The Thousand and One Churches and remains the
standard work on early Byzantine architecture in Anatolia.
View diary entries, and a life time of photos at the
Newcastle University Library -Gertrude Bell Archive website
Read the letters of
Gertrude Bell free on line
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