Noorah Al-Gailani
BISI
One Baghdadi family's lore about Miss Bell and how the Gertrude Bell archive has been a source for family history
This presentation will briefly explore Miss Bell's interactions with a few of the men in the Gailani family in Baghdad. This contact produced tales that have been passed down as family lore. In her letters and diary entries, Miss Bell mentions some of the Gailani men she met, which has shone a light on these men's activities and dealings in public life beyond their familial circle. Both Gailani family lore and Miss Bell's writings reveal perceptions and misperceptions about each other, as well as about social life in a society transitioning from Ottoman times to the newly established Iraq.
Stefania Berutti
CAMNES
"Lying in a hammock in a Persian garden". Gertrude Bell and the translation of Hafez's poems
Gertrude Bell arrived in Teheran in the spring of 1892 to stay with her uncle Frank Lascelles, the British Minister in Persia, and his wife, sister of Bell's stepmother. Within five years, Bell had taken Persian lessons and produced one of the most highly regarded English translations of Hafez's poetry. The presentation will try to delineate Bell's approach to the study of Persian culture and how it stands out from the British tradition of the Orientalists. It will also be a way to describe Bell's first look to that part of the world that would become her home.
Ilaria Bucci and Enrico Foietta
Durham University and University of Torino
"Like an acanthus capital in a nightmare": The sculpture of Hatra from Gertrude Bell to the Hatra Statuary Salvage Project (Iraq Museum)
Gertrude Bell's visits to Hatra in 1911 and 1922 were foundational moments in the site's early exploration. This paper presents the Hatra Statuary Salvage Project (HaSSP), a CAMNES-SBAH collaboration that catalogued more than 200 sculptures in the Iraq Museum storerooms across two seasons (2019-2020, 2023). Combining documentation, conservation, and archaeological and epigraphic analysis, the paper aims to reframe these objects' material and visual histories, placing Bell's work in dialogue with contemporary archaeological and preservation practices.
Valentina Flex
Newcastle Archive
A World Recorded: Exploring the Archival Legacy of Gertrude Bell
The Gertrude Bell Archive, held at Newcastle University Special Collections, is a UNESCO Memory of the World registered collection wich spans over fifty years and comprises letters, diaries, photographs and writings created by Gertrude Bell. It is complemented by the personal and working library owned, used, and often annotated by Gertrude, known as the Gertrude Bell Book Collection. Using highlights from this rich resource of original material, the presentation will consider Bell through an archival lens, exploring the ways in which her life and work can be interpreted and understood through her documentary legacy.
Alesia Koush
CAMNES - UNESCO Chair in Illicit Trafficking in Cultural Property and Cultural Rights, University of Siena, Italy
Legislative legacy of Gertrude Bell: From 1924 Iraqi Antiquities Law till today
This presentation contextualises the legislative legacy of Gertrude Bell within a wider historical, political and cultural frame, starting from the 1924 Iraqi Atiquities Law and the resistance it faced on behalf of Iraqi politicians, proceedings with the Iraqi Antiquities Law N. 59 of 1936 enacted immediately after the Iraqi independence and facing opposition, this time, from the British archaeological establishment, and arriving up to the Antiquities and Heritage Law No. 55 of 2002 and the most recent announcement by the Iraqi Government seeing the country embarking on Retrieve Dipolomacy aimed at the repatriation of Iraq's invaluable cultural heritage to its rightful place of belonging.
Marina Lo Blundo
Parco Archeologico di Ostia Antica
"I have strung their words upon the thread of the road": Gertrude Bell traveller and travel writer
Gertrude Bell is the author of more than one travelogue. Alongside her best-known work, "The Desert and the Sown", Bell published other autobiographical travelogues that reveal her keen eye not only for places, but also for local people and communities. This article aims to provide an overview of Bell as a travel writer, examining even her lesser-known works, in order to portray her as a curious, enterprising traveller who respected local traditions and took care to record details and anecdotes.
Joan Porter MacIver
BISI
Gertrude Bell and the Iraq Museum inspired by the research of Dr Lamia Al-Gailani Werr (1938-2019)
Many books have been written about Gertrude Bell and her political involvements and travels but less is known of her time at the Iraq Museum. The late Dr Lamia Al-Gailani Werr spent time in the archives of the Iraq Museum intending to write a book on the last few years of her life. This paper will draw from her research and Gertrude Bell's own writings to assemble a fuller understanding of her time as Honorary Director of Antiquities and as founder of the Iraq Museum.
Ilaria Puri Purini
American Academy in Rome
The Roman Spring of Gertrude Bell: Images and Emancipation
Gertrude Bell was in Rome in the spring of 1910, before continuing her travels along the Dalmatian coast. During her stay, she met scholars, aristocrats, photographers, and archaeologists. My talk will focus on her photography from this period, comparing it to images by her contemporaries, such as Esther Van Deman and Maria Pasolini Ponti. Read alongside her dense writings, these photographs reveal an interest in archaeological discoveries and ancient construction techniques, and they show how she used photography not only as documentation but also as a tool for feminist emancipation.
Rosalind Wade Haddon
BISI
Gertrude Bell's unfinished guide to Baghdad and Mosul's historic monuments
This talk will focus on Baghdad's historic medieval monuments, a topic close to Miss Bell's heart. Her aim was to educate and inform the visitor to this once golden capital. Unfortunately all that is left to us today is a typescript in the Newcastle University archives.
