(female narrator)
At the turn of the 20th century,
a young British adventurer
with a love
of history and archaeology
explored the desert lands
of sultans and sheikhs.
For nearly two decades,
Gertrude Bell
traveled thousands of miles
across Persia, Turkey,
and Arabia
by horse and camel,
visiting great cities
and discovering, mapping,
and excavating ancient ruins
deep in the harsh desert.
She became so intimately
familiar with the Arab world,
its geography and leaders,
that the British government
asked for her assistance
in shaping the borders
of modern Iraq
after the end
of World War I.
♪
(Describer) Titles: PBS Education. World Explorers: Gertrude Bell.
(Describer) As a map zooms in on the United Kingdom, the pointer of a timeline moves to 1868.
Gertrude Bell was born
to a wealthy
and politically active
British family on July 14, 1868.
She attended Oxford University,
where she was the first woman
to graduate
with the highest-honor
history degree.
To pursue her love
of archaeology,
Bell decided to forego a life of
luxury and privilege in England.
She chose to live an itinerant
and dangerous life,
one of travel and adventure,
almost exclusively reserved
for men of that era.
(Describer) She stands by a tent.
Bell's long-term fascination
was the ancient ruins
buried throughout
the Arabian Desert.
In the 12 years
before World War I,
she made six journeys
deep into uncharted desert
and published five books
about her travels
and her
archaeological excavations.
Fluent in both Persian
and Arabic,
and willing to live in tents
among nomadic tribes,
Bell was accepted as
a confidante by powerful sheikhs
and other tribal chiefs.
Prior to World War I,
the Ottoman Turks
ruled over many Arab lands.
When the war began, the British
military recruited Bell,
who became the first
female intelligence officer
to convince free Arab tribes
of Saudi Arabia
to unite and join England
to defeat their common enemy,
the Ottoman Turks,
and liberate their Arab brethren
from Turkish rule.
Together, they succeeded
and the Ottoman Empire
collapsed.
After the war,
the British government
temporarily took control
of former Ottoman provinces
inhabited by Arabs.
Bell then acted
as a liaison, or link,
between the British
and Arab leaders
in order to establish
a single Arab government
for the newly
independent lands.
She worked closely
with British officials,
like Winston Churchill,
as well as powerful sheikhs,
like Ibn Saud,
the king of Saudi Arabia.
(Describer) He and Bell stand with others in a photograph.
In 1920, with consent
from England
and the most powerful
Arab tribes,
Bell drew the borders
of the new nation.
She called it Iraq.
Bell recommended installing
an Arab noble,
Faisal I,
as Iraq's first king.
Until her death in 1926,
Bell closely advised
King Faisal
in his attempt to develop
a stable government
in the newly formed nation.
(Describer) A group works in a desert.
King Faisal, in turn,
assisted Bell
in her archaeological pursuits.
Unlike most archaeologists
of her time,
Bell advocated
that antiquities
should remain
in their home countries,
rather than being shipped off
to European museums.
King Faisal helped Bell
establish
the Iraqi National Museum.
The artifacts
that she discovered
during her archaeological digs
remain in Iraq,
as do many ancient treasures
that continue to
be discovered in the region.
When empires were collapsing
and world order was in flux,
Gertrude Bell used her deep
insights of Arabian culture
to help establish self-rule
in Iraq.
In the process,
she shaped
the modern Middle East
as it is known today.
(Describer) A present-day map of the Middle East includes Iraq with the same borders.
Titles: PBS Education. World Explorers: Gertrude Bell.
Special thanks to the Gertrude Bell Archive, New Castle University for their gracious collaboration.
Accessibility provided by the US Department of Education.
Accessibility provided by the
U.S. Department of Education.
