On 22 October 1922, Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell (1868–1926) was appointed Honorary Director of Antiquities by the Iraqi government.Footnote 1 Bell had already played a pivotal role in the formation of the Iraqi state during and after the First World War and was now offered another opportunity to shape the country’s future. The transition from the ‘Age of Empire’ to the ‘Age of Extremes’, marked by the onset of the Great War, was a crucial moment in Bell’s life, not just because of her personal losses and wartime involvement, but on account of her personal journey from a series of ‘unofficial’ roles in Western Asian affairs towards official status within the administration. As Bell herself noted, she could almost think she had become ‘a person’, someone who had an active role in society, recognised and relied upon by others.Footnote 2 As Honorary Director of Antiquities, Bell was tasked with drafting a functional antiquities law to protect Iraq’s cultural heritage and establishing the National Archaeological Museum of Iraq to house archaeological finds and make them accessible to the public. As Bernhardsson rightly noted, Bell’s efforts in these and other areas highlighted her dual identity as both a ‘British imperialist and an Iraqi nationalist’.Footnote 3 Like many other prominent figures of her time, she was a nuanced and complex character who resisted the simplistic categorisations identified in Edward Said’s seminal Orientalism.Footnote 4 To show Bell’s ambiguous and multifaceted personality, this article will rely on previous scholarship and the almost inexhaustible source of information provided by her letters and diaries. Particularly important for understanding her character were her almost daily letters to her father, Hugh Bell (1844–1931), which served as a means of self-reflection and analysis of the events in which she was involved. Hugh was also her role model against whom she measured most of the men she encountered and, by extension, the value of their opinions.Footnote 5
In the case of Bell, conflicting identities and apparent paradoxical beliefs pose interpretative challenges given her significant role in modern history, which emerged in multiple instances throughout her life. She was a British woman who enjoyed a series of privileges and positions usually reserved for men, disrupting and transgressing the gender boundaries of her era. For example, her ‘confident and unwavering’ narrative voice, more typical of a male writer, has been described as a conscious attempt at gender transgression.Footnote 6 However, simultaneously, she was also one of the founders of the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League, actively and proudly persuading other women of the need to maintain the gender status quo in British society.Footnote 7 Her experience and description of the Levant were also contradictory and subject to an evolution over time. Her first work, Persian Pictures, which she was pressured into publishing by her stepmother, Florence, in 1896, still showed several of the Orientalist tropes and tendencies which either demeaned the ‘East’, depicting it as backwardness and unchanging nature, or aestheticised it, by presenting beautiful exotic landscapes and scenarios.Footnote 8 However, as her knowledge of West Asia and its inhabitants grew, her stance shifted significantly towards a mix of positive and negative statements. She developed genuine admiration for Arabs and many of their leaders, even if, in some instances, such ideas were based on romanticised, idealised images, as recently suggested in the case of Bell and King Faisal I.Footnote 9
These conflicting attitudes were not limited to Bell; they were shared by other Westerners who came into direct contact with West Asia. They include the archaeologists John Garstang (1876–1956) and Joseph Chamonard (1866–1936), who will be discussed later in the article, and more prominently, the imposing Thomas Edward Lawrence (1888–1935), better known to the public as Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence, in particular, shared many ideas with Bell regarding Iraq’s future, and the two worked closely together on several occasions. Like her, Lawrence transgressed gender boundaries in his narrative language and his cross-dressing as an Arab.Footnote 10 In his support of the Arab cause and genuine admiration for aspects of Arab society and Arab leaders like Faisal, Lawrence’s narration also resorted to Orientalist tropes and racial prejudices inherited from his British imperial upbringing.Footnote 11 For both Lawrence and Bell, the Orientalist point of view is the only one emphasised in Said’s work, to the point that he claimed that the ‘main issue’ for Bell and Lawrence, among other figures, ‘was preserving the Orient and Islam under the control of the White Man’.Footnote 12 To acknowledge the many ambivalences in both Bell and Lawrence, instead, is to reassess aspects of Said’s Orientalism, which often presented the Western perspective on the ‘East’ as a flattened dimension of negativity, which, for the sake of its argument, left such contradictory moments out of its account.Footnote 13
From England to Baghdad
To understand how Bell found herself entangled in such contradictions and in Iraqi politics, we must briefly retrace her background and career before 1922. Bell came from one of the wealthiest families in the British Empire, with her father and grandfather having been successful in the steel industry in north-eastern England. By the onset of the First World War, she had already obtained great success in different fields, including geographical exploration, archaeology, translation and rock climbing.Footnote 14 Her achievements were a rare sight among Western women of her time. She became captivated by West Asia after her first sojourn in Tehran, where she stayed with her uncle, Sir Frank Lascelles (1841–1920), the British ambassador. Soon after, she started mastering Persian and Arabic and translating the poems of the Divān of Hafez.Footnote 15 From 1900, she began organising her own expeditions in Anatolia and into the desert, producing books and scientific articles on the local topography and archaeology.Footnote 16 Through her family, she had a connection with the Ottoman court in Istanbul; through her journeys, she met Arab leaders and sheikhs, creating her own network while unsystematically gathering intelligence and informally passing it to her British connections and friends.
It is worth noting that Bell can be put alongside a long line of other female explorers and scholars who emerged more prominently during Gertrude’s time, like Aemilia Edwards, the object of another article in this issue, or Lady Anne Blunt, whom she befriended and consulted for advice.Footnote 17 Other famous contemporary travellers included Mary Eliza Rogers and Freya Stark, plus several dedicated archaeologists such as Margaret Alice Murrey and Gertrude Caton-Thompson.Footnote 18 Each of these women came into contact with the ‘Orient’ in their own ways, with different aims and expectations. Like many of them, Bell had travelled the world many times, slowly building a vast network of high-placed connections across empires and nations.
The network of connections and information that she had gathered over her exploratory years became officially valuable when she joined British intelligence at the onset of the First World War. It was in November 1915, when she was working as a Red Cross nurse on the Western Front, that Bell received the official call from Captain Hall, the director of Naval Intelligence in Cairo. According to her friend and colleague Janey Courtney, Bell drew her aside one morning to tell her that ‘I’ve heard from David [Hogarth, brother of Janey]; he says anyone can trace the missing but only I can map Northern Arabia. I am going next week’.Footnote 19 She set aside her carefree years spent learning languages, travelling and exploring, and joined the conflict first in Cairo, then in Basra, and finally in Baghdad, where she became the first woman officer in British military intelligence history.Footnote 20 In this official role, she wrote intelligence reports to inform English officers on the situation on the ground regarding the local tribes, their allegiances, leaders, personal conflicts and political ambitions.Footnote 21 After the war, Bell played a prominent role in the peace process, participating in the Paris Peace Conference (1919–20) and the Cairo Conference (1921). Here, working closely with T. E. Lawrence, she advocated for the Arab cause to mitigate the diplomatic fallout caused by the disclosure of the Sykes–Picot Agreement. Choosing to stay in Iraq, she supported the formation of an Iraqi state, often clashing with the more imperialistic members of the British administration.Footnote 22 She frequently opposed the policies of her superior, Arnold Wilson (1884–1940), who succeeded the more moderate Percy Cox (1864–1937) as Civil Commissioner for Iraq from 1918 to 1921, after which Cox was reinstated. Bell was particularly critical of Wilson’s violent approach in suppressing the Arab revolt of 1920 and his reluctance to establish an Arab government, as promised, preferring direct British control.Footnote 23
Bell was now fully and officially involved in state affairs, where, under the guidance of Cox, she effectively utilised her past experience. As in other aspects of her life, she often acted in seemingly contradictory ways. Politically, her fervent Iraqi nationalism was evident, as she envisioned a free Iraq after a period of British supervision, criticising the British government’s ambiguous intentions. In 1920, she reassured her friend Ja’far Pasha al-Askari, a future prime minister of Iraq, that ‘complete independence was what we ultimately wished to give’. He wisely replied, ‘complete independence is never given; it is always taken’.Footnote 24 The continuation of this exchange highlights the challenges faced by those who sought pragmatic and peaceful solutions to the issue of Arab independence:
‘But because I [Ja’far Pasha] believe in your honesty of purpose’ he continued ‘I am ready to work with you for the salvation of my country – and when I go to my brothers to persuade them to help they turn aside and say “You’re English.”’ I [Bell] said ‘It’s your turn. For the last year when I spoke to my brothers they turned from me and said “You’re an Arab.”’Footnote 25
This exchange is emblematic of the complex situation of figures like Bell and al-Askari, who, for the sake of their beliefs (Bell) or their people (al-Askari), had to come to uncomfortable compromises, jeopardising their identity in their own eyes and those of their countrymen.
As evidenced by her papers, Bell ultimately strongly supported the Arab cause, a support that she developed over time. In 1919, she shifted from a more direct and traditional colonial approach to recognising the necessity and importance of Arab self-rule.Footnote 26 However, she showed less openness in other areas, notably the management of Iraqi cultural heritage. According to the 1922 Anglo-Iraqi treaty, the new state was required to enact a law to protect its cultural heritage within twelve months. King Faisal entrusted this task to Bell, one of the few British administrative officers with archaeological experience left in Iraq after T. E. Lawrence’s departure. After all, as Bell herself noted, ‘there was no one else’.Footnote 27 While she may not have had the academic pedigree of some of her male counterparts, Bell possessed extensive theoretical and empirical knowledge in archaeology, not inferior to that of some of the most eminent scholars of her time. She had studied archaeology in Paris with Salomon Reinach and had practical field experience, having coordinated excavations in Asia Minor with Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, as reported in The Thousand and One Churches.Footnote 28 Additionally, she surveyed and photographed several sites across the desert, including the Abbasid palace of Ukhaidir, which she also published.Footnote 29 The amount of photographs collected in the Gertrude Bell Archive at Newcastle University is a testament to her documentary work.Footnote 30
In July 1922, Bell presented King Faisal, who was ‘perfectly sound about archaeology – having been trained by T. E. Lawrence’,Footnote 31 with a draft antiquities law, anticipating swift approval from the Iraqi Cabinet.Footnote 32 By October of the same year, Bell had been nominated as the Honorary Director of Antiquities until ‘we could afford a proper Director’,Footnote 33 giving her a position in both the British and Iraqi administrations. Despite Faisal’s apparent support, the legislative process was protracted, and the law was not passed until June 1924.Footnote 34 The delay was the result of strong resistance from nationalist members of the Iraqi government, particularly Yasin al-Hasimi, an influential cabinet member appointed prime minister by Faisal in 1924, and Sati al-Husri, the director of General Education from 1921 to 1927. Bell’s proposed legislation included standard measures of the time, such as requiring excavation permits from the Iraqi government and imposing stringent scientific requirements for applicants regarding their excavation procedures. These measures raised no objections among the nationalists; tension arose over reintroducing the practice known as partage. This system divided archaeological finds between Western expeditions and local authorities, in this case under a fifty-fifty partition, leaving the Director of Antiquities with significant discretion to resolve disputes or even to abuse the law. The partage provided a legal means for Western nations to benefit from exploiting and exporting archaeological artefacts – a practice already banned in most European countries. Naturally, the nationalist movements strongly opposed its reintroduction. Bernhardsson has already extensively examined the law’s genesis and the surrounding debate.Footnote 35 However, his analysis is limited to Bell’s motivation and her direct opponents within the Iraqi government. To understand Bell’s actions and motivations fully, it is essential to consider the broader context in which she operated and her personal network of connections in archaeological matters, which ultimately influenced her decisions.
Dividing the ‘spoils’: the forced reintroduction of the partage in the Levant
The context within which Bell operated marked a pivotal moment for the newly formed countries emerging from the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire as they sought to forge their own national identities. The Anglo-French Mandates of Palestine, Transjordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria had each enacted their own antiquities legislation, entrusting Western archaeologists with drafting it. The dependence on Western expertise and mediation regarding antiquities was just another part of the imperialist programme, which, on the one hand, promoted the idea of internationalism, justifying the removal of antiquities from their countries of origin under the banner of salvage and uplift, on the grounds of their supranational interests and value. On the other hand, it imposed Western-centric views and practices that marginalised archaeological and historical materials from periods deemed unimportant or unworthy of study, such as Ottoman or Arab history.Footnote 36
Ottoman legislation, which had previously applied to these territories, had sought to address the West’s thirst for antiquities. A pioneer in protective measures was Ottoman Egypt, where Khedive Muhammad Ali had sought to stem the flow of antiquities from the country in 1835.Footnote 37 In Istanbul, the first antiquities law was enacted in 1869, prohibiting the export of objects other than coins. However, the text only comprised seven articles, leaving many loopholes in the system. A revised version, passed in 1874,Footnote 38 introduced a tripartite division of materials among landowners, the state and excavators, likely to encourage collaboration between Western archaeologists and Ottoman authorities. The Ottoman state’s difficulties in enforcing the law and collecting its share likely led to the removal of this concession in subsequent versions of the 1884 and 1906 texts.Footnote 39 Despite the regulations, the Ottoman administration often granted exceptions by virtue of political and personal favours. For instance, Bell leveraged her personal connections within the Ottoman government to ensure that local authorities did not disrupt her excavations with Ramsay in 1907.Footnote 40 Additionally, the Ottomans frequently lacked the resources to control excavators, particularly in their remote provinces like Mesopotamia. Consequently, Western archaeologists and collectors found multiple means to export antiquities legally or illegally, often rendering the legislation, at best, a shield of paper.
When France and Britain assumed control of their new Mandates in 1920, the most straightforward approach would have been to maintain the latest Ottoman norms, which were mostly aligned with Western standards by then.Footnote 41 Instead, they drafted new laws, largely based on similar principles but with a significant difference: all Mandate antiquity legislation reintroduced the partage system, thereby recognising the new assertive authority of France and Britain in the field of archaeology.Footnote 42 However, behind the scenes, a debate was emerging among specialists and politicians, as Griswold shows.Footnote 43 Her analysis reveals that some figures, such as French Egyptologist Pierre Lacau, opposed the partage. In 1918, Lacau remarked that the protective measures of the Ottoman law of 1884 were ‘completely normal from a scientific point of view’ and as head of the Egyptian Service of Antiquities, he sought to keep unique finds in Egypt.Footnote 44 His stance was among the first notable challenges to earlier purely predatory practices.Footnote 45 Griswold demonstrates that similar views were shared by a broader group of Western archaeologists operating in the Mandates. In 1920, Joseph Chamonard was tasked with devising an antiquities law for the French Mandates of Syria and Lebanon. He sought the collaboration of his British counterpart in Palestine, John Garstang. The two archaeologists aimed to produce similar texts but with one major difference: Garstang, to Chamonard’s surprise, had adopted the partage, with a fifty-fifty division of finds, granting excavators priority of choice. Chamonard questioned how Westerners could help to organise these new countries while dispossessing them of part of their archaeological heritage. Garstang privately agreed but cited pressures from London in the matter.Footnote 46
One of the primary architects of the campaign to reintroduce the partage was Sir Frederick Kenyon (1863–1952), director of the British Museum and founder of the Archaeological Joint Committee, established in 1918 to represent British archaeological interests. Western arguments in favour of the partage were framed under the disguise of scientific necessities, with Kenyon asserting that locals were uninterested in antiquities, their authorities were incapable of managing their archaeological heritage, and that the supranational value of the finds warranted their transfer to ‘safe havens’ such as Western museums. Kenyon also argued that Britain’s imperial status justified displaying artefacts from across the Empire in the British Museum.Footnote 47 His influence, supported by the Committee, was pivotal as he personally lobbied government officials with more moderate views to secure his objectives.Footnote 48 Despite increasing unpopularity among archaeologists stationed abroad, ‘who developed new priorities due to their immersion in fieldwork and local contexts’,Footnote 49 political power and the potential impacts on academic careers for non-collaborative individuals resulted in a general acceptance of the partage across the Mandates. Even Chamonard ultimately yielded to Paris’s will, and when the law was finally approved in 1926, the partage was reintroduced. This was part of a broader international movement aimed at depriving colonised and Mandate countries of their heritage, forcing a Western mediation and retarding the development of local expertise and awareness on the matter.Footnote 50
Bell and the antiquities law of Iraq
This was the environment in which Bell found herself, tied to her colleagues in the Mandates, from whom she frequently sought advice and guidance. However, her professional network appears to have been limited to supporters of the partage, and, as a member of the Archaeological Joint Committee, Bell drew many of her academic contacts from this group.Footnote 51 In 1919, she corresponded with George Francis Hill (1867–1948) (see Figure 1) of the British Museum, who sent her a draft of Palestine’s antiquities law along with comments from the Committee and himself.Footnote 52 The preliminary note introducing the text immediately revealed the Committee’s attitudes, criticising the stricter Egyptian law and the ‘futility of trusting to restrictive measures’ to prevent artefact export. The note advocated different norms to encourage ‘private persons to report the discovery of antiquities and to render such antiquities accessible to study; under the conviction that such measures will be at the same time financially advantageous to the Government’. It concluded that it was ‘impracticable to follow in detail the provision of the Egyptian Law’, suggesting instead a system of partition which would benefit the excavators and compensate the local government in other ways.Footnote 53 Other papers in the Gertrude Bell Archive at Newcastle University include not only the two early drafts of the Palestinian law but also copies of the Egyptian version and comments on Turkish legislation, showing the origins of her sources.Footnote 54
Letter from George Francis Hill of the British Museum to Gertrude Bell, dated April 1919. Courtesy of the Bell (Gertrude) Archive, Newcastle University Library – item GB-MISC-3-12-1-3.
Figure 1 Long description
The letter is from the Department of Coins and Medals, British Museum, dated April 8, 1919. It is addressed to Gertrude Bell. The letter discusses the draft of a law and the Committee's views on it. Hill mentions the impracticality of following the Egyptian law in detail and suggests a system of partition. The letter is signed by George Francis Hill.
In August 1922, Bell sought the advice of the British Egyptologist James Edward Quibell (1867–1935), then director of the Egyptian Museum and secretary-general of the local Antiquities Service, though, to my knowledge, the outcome of this discussion remains undocumented.Footnote 55 Evidence shows her direct correspondence with Kenyon by 1923, which indicates a heavy reliance on the directions and suggestions from the Joint Committee.Footnote 56 Bell was evidently convinced of the righteousness of her actions, though her acquiescence to the desires of the Committee members suggests a possible insecurity in her role as Director of Antiquities. This could be attributed to her lack of formal archaeological training, although, in practice, her training was not inferior to that of many other accredited archaeologists of the time. Her attitude in the matter further indicates her complex personality and contrasting views, as she was usually ready to voice her opinions to her colleagues and superiors, as shown, for example, in her frequent arguments with Sir Arnold T. Wilson over his conduct of the British Mandate.Footnote 57 In this case, however, she seems to have fully embraced the Committee’s aims.
Archaeology at the time was largely regarded as a Western field, and local attempts to regulate foreign activities were often viewed as inconveniences. This sentiment was reflected by Bell on multiple occasions, when she mentioned that Faisal had been trained in archaeology by Lawrence or when she showed her contempt towards Ottoman authorities in 1907.Footnote 58 Therefore, she did not seek the opinion and advice of local Iraqis; instead, she pushed her own agenda, which aligned with the Joint Committee. Bernhardsson highlighted her staunch belief in the partage when she dismissed al-Husri’s comparison with Crete, a country that abolished the partition of finds, asserting that ‘Iraq is one thing and Crete is another thing altogether’.Footnote 59 Bell placed the Department of Antiquities under the Ministry of Public Works, drawing on Egypt as a model. According to al-Hashimi, this move was intended to bypass the Ministry of Education, previously in charge of antiquities, which was too full of nationalists for Bell’s taste.Footnote 60 In the Public Works Ministry, instead, she could rely on the support of her friend, Minister Sabih Beg and the technical help of the British architect Major O. M. Wilson.Footnote 61 However, the connection with the Public Works Ministry was also intended to reflect the assimilation of archaeology into development policies during the Mandate and, more generally, in Western colonies, as in Egypt.Footnote 62
In her role as Director of Antiquities, she routinely supervised excavation sites and assessed applicants’ methodological capabilities. She withheld permission for the University of Oxford to work at Kish due to concerns over the proposed director, Ernest Mackay, and his lack of a team: ‘I haven’t personally a very good opinion of him as an archaeologist and anyway I feel convinced that no one, however good[,] can undertake singlehanded so big a work as the excavation of Kish, so I’ve held up the concession and telegraphed for the advice of the Joint Committee …’Footnote 63 The presence of basic controls and Bell’s effort to halt at least some of the local illegal excavationsFootnote 64 caused a spike in the prices of Iraqi antiquities due to increased difficulties in illegal exports.Footnote 65 She occasionally acquired significant pieces from private owners for display in the museum.Footnote 66 Other times, she purposely concealed the value of the objects she selected for the Iraqi government to prevent their potential sale, which would ultimately jeopardise her work and be a reason for embarrassment, or in her own words: ‘thereby blacken my face and theirs’.Footnote 67 When visiting archaeological sites were entrusted to her, like Leonard Woolley’s (1880–1960) excavations at Ur, she personally selected some of the best pieces for the Iraqi state based on their value, uniqueness and scientific importance (see Figure 2). For less significant items, she sometimes used a less orthodox method, namely a coin toss, as she did with Stephen Herbert Langdon (1876–1937) at Kish.Footnote 68 The selection process was challenging for her due to her friendships with many of the excavators, and she often felt torn between professional and personal commitments. For instance, when she took the unique Milking Scene from Leonard Woolley (see Figure 3), she remarked on the difficulty of the task:
I must take the milking scene. I can’t do otherwise. It’s unique and it depicts the life of the country at an immensely early date. In my capacity as Director of Antiquities I’m an Iraqi official and bound by the terms on which we gave the permit for excavation. J.M. backed me but it broke Mr Woolley’s heart, though he expected the decision. I’ve written to Sir F. Kenyon explaining.Footnote 69
Gertrude Bell examining finds at Kish in March 1926. Courtesy of the Bell (Gertrude) Archive, Newcastle University Library – GB-PERS-2-B-086.
Figure 2 Long description
Four people are gathered around a table outdoors, examining various artifacts. A woman is leaning over the table, closely inspecting the items. To her left, a man is standing with his hands in his pockets, observing. Another man, wearing a hat, is standing to the right of the woman, also looking at the artifacts. The fourth person, a man, is standing slightly apart, looking down at the ground. The setting appears to be an archaeological site with a brick structure in the background.
The Milking Scene from Ur. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Figure 3 Long description
The relief shows five figures and two animals in a pastoral setting. On the left, two figures are standing, one holding a vessel. Next to them, a seated figure is positioned beside a structure resembling a gate. To the right, a cow is being milked by a figure, with a calf standing nearby. The scene appears to depict an ancient agricultural or domestic activity.
Interestingly, the ‘heartbroken’ Woolley was, after all, appreciative of Bell’s work. In his correspondence with Kenyon, he expressed having ‘no cause for complaint’ while being careful not to let Bell know and instead playing on her friendly sentiments for more favourable terms.Footnote 70 Bell’s internal conflict in decision-making and her unusual concern for approval, particularly from Kenyon, are evident in her letters.Footnote 71 Unlike international politics, this seems to have been a field where she was feeling more insecure, as when she felt ‘very much relieved’ since she ‘feared they [Kenyon and Wooley] would never forgive me for taking the milking plaque which was by far the best thing they found’.Footnote 72 This insecurity will be further reiterated in the creation of the Iraq Museum, when she often claimed she had not enough expertise and would ‘make innumerable mistakes’.Footnote 73
The foundation of the Iraq Museum
Despite the partage, which left Western institutions with a sizable share of archaeological artefacts, the success and importance of the excavated sites in Iraq led to an unprecedented number of finds in the care of the newly formed Iraqi government, which was ill-prepared to manage them. This prompted Bell to find a solution, as she was quickly running out of storage space. The solution was the creation of the first Archaeological Museum of Iraq, today better known as The Iraq Museum, which was tragically looted during the American invasion of 2003.Footnote 74 The Museum was arguably Bell’s most significant contribution to Iraqi cultural heritage, establishing the nucleus of an institution for its active protection, which has endured to the present day. The process was challenging, and Bell began searching for an adequate building in 1923, finally securing one in March 1926 after extensive negotiations.Footnote 75 To compensate for her inexperience in museum management, she often sought advice from other Western experts, including Stephen Herbert Langdon, Leonard Woolley and Archibald Sayce (1845–1933), a British Assyriologist and linguist. In 1925, she initiated the first Iraqi archaeological mission, sponsored by the Iraq Museum, a small excavation at Kirkuk led by Edward Chiera (1885–1933), an Italian-American Assyriologist.Footnote 76 Upon obtaining the building in March 1926, Bell quickly began refurbishing and organising it. By 14 June 1926, the first room was ready, a preliminary catalogue was printed, and King Faisal himself inaugurated the Museum. A delighted Bell commented that ‘everyone agrees that it looks like a museum’.Footnote 77 Her efforts were supported by a small staff, including Abdul Quadir Pachanji, ‘an old Arab curator’, Salim, ‘a knowledgeable Jew clerk’ whom she trained in writing labels,Footnote 78 and British volunteers like the soldier Edward Harnett and J. M. Wilson.
It has been noted that the museum represented Western archaeological interests, emphasising typical Western biblical topics of the time, thereby inspiring works at Ur and Babylon, while ignoring Arab heritage, for example.Footnote 79 This element is easily attributable to Bell’s imperialist side, but it is only partially accurate. Before her death, on 12 July 1926, Bell was able to inaugurate only the first room of ‘her museum’, which mostly contained ancient statuary. However, in a letter to her stepmother, Florence, she envisioned a different outcome:
The new arrangement will be chronological not geographical except in the downstairs rooms where all the big, heavy stone objects, too heavy to carry upstairs, will stand – a Babylonian room, and Assyrian room and an Arab room [emphasis added] are what I shall begin on downstairs when the necessary fittings are made. I foresee that I shall be very boring about museums for some time to come! Also that I shall make innumerable mistakes.Footnote 80
Bell’s interest in the Arab world was not only limited to politics: unlike most scholars traversing Western Asia at the time, she was also a medievalist interested in Arab history, literature and archaeology. Her greatest archaeological contributions were to the Abbasid palace of Ukhaidir and the Byzantine churches of the Tur Abdin. As an Arab nationalist, she emphasised the importance of locals’ appreciation of their entire history. This was evident when she purposely brought Faisal to see Ctesiphon, guiding him through the ruins, which he had never visited before (see Figure 4). She ‘took him into the high mounds to the south, whence we could see the Tigris, and told him the story of the Arab conquest as Tabari records it. … It was the tale of his own people – you can imagine what [it] was like reciting to him. I don’t know which of us was the more thrilled.’Footnote 81 This episode again recounts the contradictions embedded within the Mandates and Bell. On the one hand, it reiterates the imperialist necessity of subjugating the ownership and mediation of the local past to Western expertise since, according to Bell’s words, ‘there was no one else’ who could do it. On the other hand, Bell was probably animated by her nationalist sympathies in trying to instil a sense of pride and custodianship in a leader of a newly formed Arab nation, formally ‘liberated’ from the Ottoman yoke, by appealing to the glories of the Arab-Islamic golden age.
Gertrude Bell, King Faisal I and other Arab and British officials during a picnic party at Ctesiphon in 1921. Courtesy of the Bell (Gertrude) Archive, Newcastle University Library – item GB-PERS-2-B-018.
Figure 4 Long description
Gertrude Bell, King Faisal I and six other individuals are seated on a rocky terrain having a picnic. The group includes men and one woman, with some wearing military uniforms and helmets. Plates and bottles are spread on the ground in front of them. The setting appears informal and relaxed, with the individuals sitting close together, suggesting a social gathering.
As Director of Antiquities, Bell tried to emphasise Arab history and heritage. She began to collect Islamic artefacts for the museum, as when she salvaged an Abbasid inscription to restore and placed it in the Arab room.Footnote 82 Faisal, clearly interested in the project, sent her a bust of himself for display in the museum.Footnote 83 Her sudden death, only weeks from the inauguration of the first room of the Museum, interrupted the project. Subsequent Western curators ignored her plans and applied a more traditional approach, never delivering the expected Arab section. This immediately drew criticism from nationalists like al-Husri, deepening the divide between Western scholars and Iraqi nationalists, leading to a temporary rejection of archaeological practice altogether, now perceived even more as a ‘Western thing’.Footnote 84 Bell’s unrealised project further highlights the contradictions within her character. She remained firm on her colonialist positions on the partage but took care to plan an Arab room in the Museum, something that very few other Western scholars would have done at the time. Ultimately, the Museum was probably one of her long-lasting successes, as, despite its initial deficiencies, it provided a secure home for Iraq’s antiquities and state archaeological enterprises, such as the excavation at Kirkuk. Despite its origins as a Western dominion, it evolved into a space for locals to engage with their heritage and train local experts. Though initially rejected by nationalists, the Museum became a reference point for a developing Iraqi cultural identity and an essential step towards establishing an independent archaeological service.Footnote 85
Conclusion
How can we evaluate Gertrude’s work for Iraqi cultural heritage? Like any colonial-era protagonist, Bell will always remain a controversial figure. However, acknowledging the existence of multiple, often conflicting impulses within her allows us to reframe her as a more realistic, multidimensional human figure, rather than the one-dimensional Orientalist character depicted in Said’s work. While she was influenced by the conservative views of her family and other members of her upper social class, her Oxford education equipped her with the tools to see at least some of the shortcomings of the imperial system by applying her academic training to the Iraqi situation. Her two contradictory identities, as a British imperialist and an Iraqi nationalist, significantly influenced her own work as it did that of other Westerners in West Asia. Her imperialist side, by suppressing internal debate, imposed an antiquity law favouring the West. The law persisted until 1932, when al-Husri assumed the role of Director of Antiquities and finally removed the partage, despite the objections of outraged Western archaeologists.Footnote 86 Ultimately, the law was, at best, a compromise: an improvement on the Ottoman period due to its more consistent application, yet simultaneously a regression because it reintroduced the colonial practice of dividing the finds according to the interests of the colonial powers.Footnote 87 Conversely, Bell’s support for Arab nationalism led to the establishment of the Museum, which, even if only partially realised, has remained a focal point for Iraq’s heritage and identity to this day. Had she been able to oversee the project to completion, including her plans for an Arab room, the museum might have fostered a more collaborative environment and incentivised dialogue between nationalists and Western archaeologists. For Bell, the Museum marked the culmination of a long career dedicated to Iraq, a country that, for a highly educated and determined British woman, offered liberties and authority difficult to obtain in her homeland. It permitted Bell to display her potential and ambition in order to be no longer ‘unimportant and unofficial’ and to believe that she had become ‘a person’.Footnote 88
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Mark Jackson of Newcastle University for facilitating access to the Gertrude Bell Archives, as well as the archivists and library staff who provided excellent support and expertise in searching for and obtaining the relevant materials for this article. A special thanks also to Artemis Papatheodorou, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellow with Columbia University and Ca’ Foscari University, for her expertise on Ottoman law.
Open access
