Who was Gertrude Bell?

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Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was a British archaeologist, traveller and writer, best
known for drawing the map of Iraq after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in
1919. She helped create the National Museum of Object 2 Irak, being convinced that the archaeological pieces should be in their places of origin, and not move to other places.

In love with travel, she visited sites such as Syria, Jerusalem, Petra, Palmyra, always
looking for points to make excavations and learn from teachers and researchers such as
David Hogarth, of the British Museum.

Biography of Gertrude Bell

Family
Gertrude Bell did not suffer economic problems because his father, Hugh Bell, was the
heir of Sir Isaac Lowlluan Bell, grandfather of Gertrude, one of the steel magnates.
Lowlluan influenced her granddaughter because he interested her from an early age in
international affairs and politics, he also encouraged her to know the world and travel,
one of her passions throughout her life.
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Bell was born in 1868 in Durham, but her mother, Mary Shield, would lose her life after
giving birth to her brother Maurice three years later. The loss of her mother at such a
young age forced the Bell girl to hold on tightly to her father.

The affection for that man who would support her from a young age in all her adventures
lasted practically all her life. Some say that the loss of the mother caused in her a
childhood with certain periods of depression and anguish.

The influence of Florence Olliffe

Hugh Bell later married, in 1876, Florence Olliffe, a writer who developed a passion for
oriental tales in the young woman. Olliffe was the author of children’s stories, and she
greatly influenced Bell, especially in matters of decorum and the proper exercise of
duties.
Gertrude also saw her stepmother’s work with the wives of blacksmiths in Eston,
Middlesbroug, and was the seed for her future work helping educate women in Iraq.
As a result of the love between his father and his stepmother, three children were born:
Molly, Elsa and Hugo. In those early years, Gertrude Bell received instruction at home
and spent several days with uncles and cousins.

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Studies
From a very young age, she was a very restless child. The talent was evident, so in
adolescence his father decided that he should enter the prestigious Queen’s College, an
institution founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou. Bell’s experience was such that one of
her history professors asked her to enroll in Oxford.

She had been a model student, applied and with the best grades, so her entry to Oxford
would be assured. However, the times were not the best for women.
Despite this, she specialized in modern history, at a time when it was very strange for a
woman to study precisely this branch of the social sciences. What few know is that he
graduated with honors, and that he did so in just two years. The students of that class
were 11, nine men and two girls, Gertrude Bell and Alice Greenwood.

Travel and books

Leaving Oxford in 1892, he decided to travel to Persia, as he had an uncle in the British
embassy in Tehran, Sir Frank Lascelles. Bell met there Henry Cadogan, who was
secretary at the embassy.
Although he was an educated and intelligent man, he had, according to his father, Hugh
Bell,
a defect: he was poor, so he did not consent to the marriage. In 1894, Persian Pictures
was published.
He then decided to return to England and start several trips to dedicate himself to
mountaineering and learning languages. It is known that Gertrude spoke up to seven
languages, among them French, Italian, Arabic, Persian, German and Turkish, many of
them learned in his multiple trips and thanks to the direct contact with all kinds of
people in the different places.

In 1899 he returned to the East and travelled to Jerusalem and Damascus. She also
spent several years preparing for a unique adventure across the desert, an expedition
that Bell herself organized and that led her to dive into a world foreign to her and
new, knowing the nomadic tribes. In 1906 this journey was reflected in a book,
Syria: The Desert and the Sown.

Syria: the desert and sowing

We owe the discovery of the Arab deserts in part to Gertrude Bell, who in 1907 traveled to
cities such as Jerusalem, Damascus, Beirut, Antioch and Alexandria.
Bell’s interest was to leave both a written and graphic testimony, hence the book Syria:
The Desert and Sowing counts as a valuable document thanks to its rich descriptions
and accompanying images.

Later, in the company of archaeologist Sir William M. Ramsay, they discovered a field of
ruins in northern Syria, towards the upper bank of the Euphrates River.

Mountaineering
Aside from her passion for archaeological excavations, Gertrude Bell was in love with
mountaineering. She enjoyed climbing several European peaks, including one named
after her, the Gertrudspitze, which has a height of 2,632, which she herself traversed
alongside two of her guides.

In a span of five years he conquered peaks such as La Meije and Mont Blanc. In one of
them, however, she stumbled, due to weather conditions, with rains and heavy snowfall,
which forced her to stand beside her companions literally suspended from a rock for
about two days, adverse circumstances that almost cost them their lives.

Expeditions in Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia was a territory yet to be conquered. Its cities attracted archaeologists from
all over the world, so Gertrude also decided to dive into that world of uncooked brick cities
and conical mounds.
The fortress that Bell found, his main discovery, was the fortress-palace of Ujaidi, which
had round towers and mortar walls. He also drew at scale the plans of a large stone castle
while it was guarded by several men armed with rifles, because the atmosphere prevailing
at that time was of great instability.
Map of Iraq
Before World War I began, the world was a hotbed of conspiracies, and more East. It
was in Karkemish that Bell had the opportunity to meet T. E. Lawrence, who was just
beginning excavations.
It was then that the British government hired Gertrude as an agent to collect information
about the Arab world, as she had traveled it and knew its customs and ways of life in the
desert.

As the only woman in the British intelligence service, the Arabs dubbed her the Jatun, for
having eyes and ears on constant alert. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the territory
of present-day Iraq was divided between France and England.
The task entrusted to him by the government was to draw the new map in order to avoid
as many tribal clashes as possible. At the Cairo meeting in 1921, convened by Winston
Churchill to define the future directions of the new state, Gertrude Bell was the only
woman among more than forty men.

Death
Some speculation holds that Gertrude took her own life by taking several sleeping pills.
However, it was also known that before taking the medication she asked her maid to
wake her. His death occurred on 12 July 1926.