The forgotten 'female Lawrence of Arabia' - Gertrude Bell

From The Telegraph:

In a picture taken to mark the Cairo Conference of 1921, Gertrude Bell - characteristically elegant in a fur stole and floppy hat, despite being on camel back - sits right at the heart of the action. To one side is Winston Churchill, on her other TE Lawrence, later immortalised in David Lean’s 1962 epic, Lawrence of Arabia.

Bell was his equal in every sense: the first woman to achieve a first (in modern history) from Oxford, an archaeologist, linguist, Arabist, adventurer and, possibly, spy. In her day, she was arguably the most powerful woman in the British Empire - central to the decisions that created the modern Middle East and reverberate still on the nightly news.  Yet while Lawrence is still celebrated, she has largely been forgotten.

read more her @ The Telegraph

About Gertrude Bell

• The Extraordinary Gertrude Bell edited by Mark Jackson & Andrew Parkin
• Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations by Georgina Howell
• Queen of the Desert: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell by Georgina Howell
• Daughter of the Desert: The Remarkable Life of Gertrude Bell by Georgina Howell
• Desert Queen by Janet Wallach
• Gertrude Bell: The Lady of Iraq by H.V.F. Winstone

Written By Gertrude Bell:

• Persian Pictures
• Syria
• A Woman In Arabia
• The Hafez Poems of
• The Desert & The Sown: Travels in Palestine and Syria
• The Arabian Diaries, 1913-1914
• Review of the Civil Administration in Mesopotamia
• The Letters of Gertrude Bell - Volumes 1-2
• Tales from the Queen of the Desert
• The Arab of Mesopotamia

Rediscovering the Story of Egeria - 4th Century Female Pilgrim

Egeria was a young woman who decided to make the trip of a lifetime and go to the Holy Land. But what inspired her to make that journey and walk half of the world all alone?

She was born in beautiful green Galicia and grew up surrounded by pagan stories and sacred sites related to pagan traditions. The people in this area have always known about magic and pagan rituals. Thus, Christianizing Galicia was a very slow process. In fact, even now many people of this North-West part of Spain believe in witchcraft and supernatural creatures.

It is likely that Egeria was still a young woman when she decided to change her life. Her incredible story was forgotten for seven centuries. Much of the information about her has been lost, but there is still a part of the text written by her hand which allows one to have some insight into her thoughts.

read more here @ Ancient Origins (30th October 2016)

read also here @ Women of History - Etheria (10th February 2008)

Angelina Jolie as Gertrude Bell

From the Washington Times:

Angelina Jolie is set to play a British woman who helped map out the modern Middle East in the early 20th century, the Hollywood Reporter said Friday.

According to Agence France-Presse, the Oscar-winning actress is slated to play the title character in “Gertrude Bell,” who has been described as the female Lawrence of Arabia for her pioneering work in establishing the framework for what would become Jordan and Iraq.

The project is still in development by British director Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Productions, said THR, noting that Miss Jolie has a history of playing strong female characters.

Bell was passionate about archaeology and languages, spoke several languages including Arabic and Persian, and wrote about her extensive travels in a number of books, including “Persian Pictures,” and “Syria: The Desert and the Sown.”

During World War I, Bell, who won widespread admiration among Arabs, worked as a British spy and helped to dismantle the Ottoman Empire and to found Iraq.

The project’s screenplay is being written by Jeffrey Caine, who wrote the script for 2005’s “The Constant Gardner.”

See also: 

* The Women Who Made Iraq

* Gertrude Bell Papers

* Gertrude Bell Project

* Gertrude Bell - Queen of the Desert

The Discovery of Jeanne Baret

From the Winnipeg Free Press:

TO hide her identity from the men around her, she docked her hair, bound her breasts so tightly she could hardly breathe and gritted her teeth against starvation and seasickness for 18 months at sea.

For all these trials, the passage of nearly 250 years has relegated Jeanne Baret's story to a curious historical footnote: in the mid-18th century, on an expedition ship led by famous French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, Baret hid her gender and became the first woman known to circumnavigate the globe.

Until recently, that was where Baret's place in history began and ended. But in her second book, British academic Glynis Ridley scoured fragments of historical evidence to uncover a deeper tale: one of a poor but brilliant French herb-woman who, working alongside the prominent man she loved, left a lasting mark on modern botany.

The book: The Discovery of Jeanne Baret - A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe by Glynis Ridley

Florence Baker

(c.1836 - 1916)

This young Hungarian woman, aged 17 years old, was on the verge of being sold to a Turk by her ex-nurse, when renowned explorer, Samuel Baker, bought her and took her as his wife.

Florence accompanied Samuel on all his major travels, including his search for the source of the River Nile. Both had been given up for dead when, after many harrowing hardships, they finally regained contact with civilization to give details of one of the sources of the Nile - Lake Albert.

When Samuel returned to the Equatorial regions of the Nile and was given command of a military expedition to stop slave-trading, she still remained as his most constant companion and partner throughout all these many dangerous excursions.

Later, Samuel and Florence visited India, Japan and America.

Biography of Florence Baker from the National Portrait Gallery.

Etheria (Aetheria)

Explorer

This remarkable woman was a Spanish Nun who journied to the Middle East toward the end of the 4th century. She recorded detailed descriptions of the years' daily liturgical activities in Jerusalem, especially the re-enactment, on location, of the Palm Sunday procession and other events during Holy Week leading up to Easter. This practice was all new to her.

Her writings have shown scholars that the impetus to change the widespread Christian was of merely fasting a week before Easter into symbolic enactments actually emanated from Jerusalem itself.

Visit: "The Pilgrimage of Etheria"