Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1991 - 16

actions gained her the reputation
of being pro-Arab, which she undoubtedly was, for she shared with
Lawrence and a few others the gift of
being able to communicate with
desert people. "When they talk of
tribes of sheikhs, or watering places,
I don't need to ask where they are,"
she wrote. "I know ... I see again the
wide Arabian horizon." She lived a
hectic but lonely life, where the
respect and companionship of her
colleagues were paramount. She
was eclectic in her interests: dogs,
photography, mountaineering, languages, and, above all, people.
She became a champion of Arab
independence, and of their cultural heritage.
The early 1920s were heady days
in Baghdad, a time of makeshift
government and individual initiative. One priority was antiquities
legislation. The first law to control
excavation and regulate the export
of archaeological material was passed
in 1922. There were many foreign
expeditions anxious to work between
the Tigris and the Euphrates and
eager to export their finds. The Germans wanted to take the remains of
the Ishtar Gate, which they had excavated at Babylon before the war.
The gate was eventually taken to
Berlin, where it was put on display.
The Americans and the British were
pressing for excavations at Ur. With
these requests, and many others on
her desk, Gertrude sat down to organize the Department of Antiquities
and the Iraq Museum. The museum's
first home was a shelf in her house,
the second a few humble rooms near
the palace of King Faisal I. In 1926,
however, the government gave her "a
real museum like the British Museum
only a little smaller." Within her new
quarters, Bell busied herself ordering
shallow pottery drawers and negotiating with foreign expeditions.
Her most formidable adversary
was Leonard Woolley, who presided
over the joint University of Pennsylvania-British Museum expedition
to Ur of the Chaldees. "He's a tiresome little man, but a first class dig-

ger and an archaeologist after my
own heart," she wrote. Her visits to
Ur at the end of each season were
dreaded for their long hours and
epic bargaining. "We had to claim
the best things for ourselves," she
wrote. Woolley fought hard, but she
always took an impartial referee
along to arbitrate over prize objects.
Sometimes the arguments were ferocious, "but we have no cause for
complaint," wrote Woolley, after his
second season in 1924, "though I
would not say that to Miss Bell ..."
"Who decides if we disagree?" another archaeologist once asked. "I
do,"Gertrude Bell promptly repliedand she did.
More than 60 years later, it is
hard for us to imagine what it must
have been like administering archaeology in a country that was really on
the frontier in 1925. In addition to
working with numerous foreign expeditions, each conducting largescale excavations, Gertrude was
overseeing pre-Sumerian, Sumerian,
Babylonian, Assyrian, and spectacular later sites, all with a limited
budget. In the end, the burden and
the pitiless summer heat undermined her health. Lonely and politically discredited by the British as
pro-Arab, she committed suicide in
1926 at the age of 58.
Bell's reputation in Iraq is somewhat tarnished today, for many Iraqi
scholars believe that she gave away
too much. This remarkable woman,
however, trod an intellectual and
moral tightrope in Iraq. On the one
hand, she strove to preserve the interests of the new nation and its
patrimony. On the other, Bell the intellectual wanted to place the interests of science, and its wealthy backers, above those of pure nationalism.
Her vision and drive, combined
with a dedicated and honest outspokenness, are qualities that often
seem lacking today.
Those interested in Bell's life should
read H.V.F. Winstone's admirable
biography, Gertrude Bell (London:
Jonathan Cape, 1978).

Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1991

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1991