Name: Gertrude Margaret
Surname: Lowthian Bell
Birth: Washington Hall (Regno Unito), 14 luglio 1868
Profession: The first woman to earn a degree in Modern History at Oxford, she was an explorer, adventurer, archaeologist, and essayist, as well as a translator from Arabic and Persian, writer, and prolific letter-writer. She was also a topographer and cartographer and was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. In 1916, she became the first and only woman to serve as an official of the British government and was appointed Curator of Iraqi Antiquities and Director of the Archaeological Museum of Baghdad.
Her literary passion for the Orient, an ethnological interest, and a deep human curiosity led her to venture into the most remote and dangerous parts of the desert. Moreover, her restless and unfortunate romantic life placed her outside the only role expected of a woman in the Victorian era—that of a wife and mother—leaving her alone but free in an entirely patriarchal world, where travel became her means of escape.
Fascinated by the desert, she ventured as far as Druze territory, traveling on horseback—an extraordinary feat for a woman at the time. From that moment on, she spent her life traveling by ship, train, and carriage, using every means available and defying the conventions of her era. She visited Europe, India, the Middle East, and Mesopotamia.
In 1911, she met the future Lawrence of Arabia, with whom she collaborated after the outbreak of World War I. Officially associated with the Arab Bureau in Cairo, she played a key role in organizing the Arab uprising against the Ottomans. She later settled in Baghdad, closely following the political developments in Palestine and Mesopotamia under British mandate. In 1921, she was the only woman to participate in the Cairo Conference.
Travel guide: Ägypten. Handbuch für Reisende, Leipzig, K. Baedeker, 1894 ©Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
In every one of her travels, she carried with her pistols, rifles, books, cameras, drawing and surveying materials, “tents, a folding bed, mosquito nets, a canvas bathroom, a canvas chair, mats, a table, pots, and enough provisions for at least a month; as well as sheets, crockery, a porcelain tea set, crystal glasses, and silver cutlery for meals with distinguished guests”; elegant French dresses, skirts, furs, tweed jackets, fringed shawls, embroidered blouses, feathered hats, parasols, linen riding outfits, and many books.
Women’s issue: “I would love to go to the National, but you see, no one takes me there. If I were a boy, I would visit that incomparable place every week, but a girl is even denied the chance to see beautiful things!” One of her main supporters is Lawrence of Arabia: “I believe Miss Bell, thanks to being a woman, her energy, and her recklessness, is exactly the person who can convince political officials to provide whatever she asks for”.
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