Fig. 2.18a + b Bell’s photo of a room corner in the Qasr al-Banat, featuring plaster decoration over the brickwork (top). An intact muqarnas vault stands above five-cusped blind arches on engaged columns and a dog-toothed string course. The vault has since collapsed, as shown by the photograph taken of the same corner of the palace in 2009 (bottom).
Fig. 2.19 Octagonal minaret of the twelfth century CE on the island of ‘Anah, in the Euphrates River, present-day Iraq. Before the dam at Haditha flooded the island in the 1980s, the minaret was cut into sections and re-erected in the new town of ‘Anah. The minaret no longer exists, having been destroyed by a bomb in 2006.
Fig. 2.20 Bell’s photo taken from the top of the minaret on the island of ‘Anah. The lush vegetation of the island to the north is visible, as are the remnants of the bridge that once joined the island with the town on the western bank of the river. With the completion of the Haditha Dam downstream, this island was completely flooded.
Bell's arrival at ‘Anah brings us to the end of the first major leg of her 1909 journey. She had by this point travelled 26 days since Aleppo, covered around 625 km and reported over a hundred archaeological sites.268 She had taken just under 200 photographs, these images providing an invaluable record of the numerous ruins and landscapes she had passed along the way. Many of these photographs are all the more precious since their subjects have been dramatically altered or no longer exist. But these Euphrates exploits by no means marked the climax of Bell's long journey or the height of her achievements. A greater and more spectacular prize of ancient splendour was yet to come.
CHAPTER 3
UKHAIDIR – DESERT SPLENDOUR
The principal aim of Gertrude Bell's 1909 journey was to travel along lesser-known routes through Mesopotamia, encountering places and peoples about which other travel writers had written little. In addition, her expeditions had by now taken on a serious archaeological aspect. Bell did not content herself with a passing comment and the occasional photograph of an ancient site or monument of interest. Now she endeavoured to describe, plan and systematically photograph archaeological sites with their myriad artistic and architectural details, and to make inquiries as to their date and historical import. Bell was academically ambitious at this point; she hoped that her Mesopotamian journey and subsequent publications would make an impact in archaeological circles and that she would be recognized as a serious and accomplished scholar in her own right. Nevertheless, as she made her way into the heart of the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates, the formidable nature of her goal grew more and more apparent. Several accomplished scholars and explorers had already been along some of these paths and had published learned reports of the antiquities they had seen. It would not be enough to photograph and provide a detailed description of a known ancient site. To best achieve scholarly recognition, she would need to discover something completely new, something truly magnificent and unknown. She had to be able to claim this discovery for herself, and through her subsequent research and publications demonstrate her scholarly credentials to the world.
The castle of Ukhaidir provided everything Bell could have hoped for. It was impressive and elusive, and in its splendid isolation deep in the desert, few Europeans knew much about it, much less had made any kind of scientific investigation. At the same time, it was a complicated site with an unusual character, and considerable effort would be required to establish properly its date and true identity. These were precisely the intellectual challenges Bell sought, and she took on Ukhaidir with enthusiasm, determination and energy. As it turned out, Ukhaidir was such a tremendous and significant monument that it consumed much of the next five years of her life. Not only did it require her to make two trips to Mesopotamia to ensure that it was fully recorded to her satisfaction, but it entailed intensive research into existing publications on other similar structures, and extensive correspondence with scholars who had knowledge of other sites with comparable architectural characteristics and functional attributes.
Discovery and Documentation
Bell knew nothing about the existence of the Ukhaidir palace when she set out on her journey down the Euphrates into the heart of Mesopotamia in the early months of 1909. Nevertheless, she had already developed an interest in the desert region west of the Euphrates River, where Ukhaidir is located, and in particular the Sasanian-period settlements that were believed to exist there. Bell's interest in the Sasanian period, dated between the third and seventh centuries CE, can in part be traced back to her prior investigations of the roughly contemporaneous Byzantine Era and in particular to her extensive research of the late antique ecclesiastical art and architecture of Anatolia. Her probing into the origins of some of the architectural features, such as the vault and the dome, observed in the churches of Binbirkilise, for example, had drawn her attention to similar forms known from the contemporary lands of the Sasanians to the east in Mesopotamia and Persia.1 Added to this was Bell's fondness for the work of Josef Strzygowski and his strong conviction that one should look for the origins of the artistic and architectural foundations of Western art in the East, many of these having emanated from the lands of Sasanian Mesopotamia and Persia. Particularly influential for Bell was Strzygowski's comprehensive treatment of the desert structure of Mshatta, which had appeared in a long journal article in 1904.2 As already reported, Bell had reviewed this important work for Salomon Reinach's journal Revue archéologique.3 Her careful reading of Strzygowski's clever and complicated assessment of Mshatta, a structure that stands in the western Syrian desert some 30 km south of Amman, had provided Bell with a strong dose of the art and architecture of the Late Antique, Sasanian and Early Islamic Near East. It also drew her into the raging debate over the date and identity of this complex, with its striking stone-carved façade, at that point only recently transplanted to the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin.4 She would have been well acquainted with Strzygowski's own conviction about the site's Sasanian architectural character, his dating of it to the fourth to sixth centuries CE, and his opinion that the building was a palace intended for rulers of the Ghassanids, Christian Arabs who had occupied the western part of the Syrian desert and protected the eastern frontiers of the Byzantine Empire.5 The Mshatta problem would also have made Bell familiar with the Lakhmids, another somewhat more elusive Arab group who occupied the Syrian desert, mainly in the regions alongside and to the west of the Euphrates River of southern Mesopotamia. First independent of Sasanian control, the Lakhmids were eventually absorbed into the Sasanian Empire and helped to protect its western frontier, particularly against the threat of Byzantine expansion.6 Some scholars were arguing, contra Strzygowski, that the Lakhmids were responsible for Mshatta's construction.7
Besides Strzygowski, Bernhard Moritz seems to have been the other source for Bell's knowledge of and growing interest in the Sasanian-period sites of the Syrian desert. In the course of her travels in the East, Bell had made the acquaintance of this German Arabic scholar, who had been head of the Khedivial Library in Cairo between 1896 and 1911.8 In addition to his extensive study of early Arabic inscriptions, Moritz had travelled widely in Egypt and the rest of the Near East, and he was familiar with the history and archaeology of Mesopotamia, having even taken part in Robert Koldewey's excavations at the Sumerian sites of Zurghul and al-Hiba.9 Bell knew about Moritz and his work as early as 1905.10 Consequently, during a visit to Cairo in January 1907 with her father and her brother Hugo, Bell met Moritz in person at the Khedivial Library and discussed with him – sometimes in the company of his colleague, the archaeologist Max Oppenheim – various topics, including Sasanian ornaments, maps and photographs. That Bell found a friend in Moritz at this time is reflected in her comment, ‘Moritz and I are hatching great plans for exploring the Syrian desert together!’11 The remark also demonstrates her developing interest in that desert region, and the castles and peoples who used to inhabit it.
In January 1909, when Bell was in Cairo and about to embark on her Mesopotamian journey, she met
up again with Moritz, who suggested part of the route to take: ‘Moritz advised me to go down the E side of the Euphrates from there [Carchemish] as there are a number of towns to be identified there and nothing has been done. So there I shall go.’12 Over dinner the following evening, Moritz repeated his advice to travel down the eastern bank, then also recommended that further down the river she make ‘an excursion from ‘Anah to the Lakhmid castles’.13 Moritz was referring to the desert region to the west of the Euphrates and below the town of ‘Anah, where the finest of the Lakhmid sites were believed to be situated. Bell clearly took Moritz's advice to heart, for we know that she included both of his recommended routes in her Mesopotamian journey. Indeed, it was her passage through the desert area below ‘Anah that led to her discovery of Ukhaidir. As Bell departed from Cairo, she wrote to her mother another letter relating her respect and friendship for Moritz:
I have had 2 enchanting days at Cairo – enchanting and most useful for my future movements, thanks mainly to the advice and wisdom of the good Moritz [...] Next morning I went out early to the oldest and most interesting of the mosques, where I took a number of photographs for which I have been wishing for a long time, and then to the Khedivial Library to see Moritz – he's the head of it, a learned mis-sticked [sic] little German who has quarreled with almost everyone, but is still a great friend of mine.14
By March 1909, Bell had followed the Euphrates River down as far as the town of ‘Anah, and there she began to make inquiries in earnest about the Syrian desert region to the west of the river, and about the ancient ruins to be found there. According to her account in Amurath to Amurath, she first heard of Ukhaidir, or ‘Kheidir’ as it was known colloquially among the local Arabs, from Bedouin tribesmen of the Jeraif, whom she found camped with their flocks on the left bank of the river. She questioned these men about the northern corner of the Sasanian Empire, and an old man – distinguished by a bullet still lodged in his cheek from his travels in central Arabia – piped up that he knew that desert country well, and if Bell would give him a horse, he would take her to all of the castles therein: Khubbaz, ‘Amej, Themail, Kheidir:
‘Where is Kheidir?’ said I, for the name was unknown to me or to Kiepert.
‘Beyond Shetateh,’ answered a lean and ragged youth. ‘I too know it, wallah!’
‘Is it large?’ I asked.
‘It is a castle,’ he replied vaguely, and one after another the men of the Jeraif chimed in with descriptions of the road. The sum total of the information offered by them seemed to be that water was scarce and raids frequent, but there were certainly castles; yes, in the land of Fahd Beg ibn Hudhdhal, the great sheikh of the Amarat, there was Kheidir. I made a mental note of that name.15
The route to Ukhaidir would require Bell to depart from the well-watered valley of the Euphrates and enter the precarious desert, where wells were rare and the threat of raids required that she bring a reliable guard who also knew the way to the pre-Islamic castles she was seeking. But Bell was resolved to take this daring journey. Below ‘Anah, at the town of Hit, known for its hot-pitch springs, Bell found her guide and made the decision to send her caravan on to Kerbela to wait for her while she and Fattuh and a much smaller donkey caravan, laden with supplies and a light tent, would make their way into the desert.
Travelling in a south-westerly direction away from the Euphrates, Bell included stops at several oasis towns. She also took the time to visit a number of ruined forts – Khubbaz, Themail and Bardawi – which she planned, photographed and judged to be either Sasanian or Islamic on the basis of their layout and architecture.16 Six days after leaving Hit, they reached Shetateh, an oasis of 160,000 palms, willows, pomegranates and irrigation streams, only a few hours from Ukhaidir (Fig. 3.1).17 They set out on the next day, their little party having now been augmented by a young English engineer, B.T. Watts, who had been surveying the region and was camped at Shetateh.18
Bell relates the excitement of her first sight of Ukhaidir:
We had ridden to the south-east for about 3 hours, through a most uncompromising wilderness, when, in the glare ahead, we caught sight of a great mass which I took for a natural feature in the landscape. But as we approached, its shape became more and more definite, and I asked one of the zaptiehs what it was. ‘It is Kheidir,’ said he. ‘Yallah, Fattuh, bring on the mules,’ I shouted and galloped forward.19
As Bell neared Ukhaidir, its impressive size and excellent preservation increased her amazement at this edifice in the middle of the desert (Fig. 3.2). Her first impressions of the castle are evocatively related in Amurath to Amurath. K.A.C. Creswell, who visited Ukhaidir in 1930 and also recorded its ruins, was no less affected by his first view of Ukhaidir in its desert loneliness, and admits that he could do no better than to repeat these words of Bell in his own work:20
Fig. 3.1 Shetateh, an oasis about four hours’ ride from Ukhaidir, seemed a paradise to Bell and her group, ‘who had dropped out of the deserts of the Euphrates’ (Bell, Amurath, p. 139).
Fig. 3.2 Bell’s photograph of the site of Ukhaidir from the north-east. Approaching from Shetateh, this would have been among Bell’s first views of the site. Her shadow appears in the lower right.
Of all the wonderful experiences that have fallen my way, the first sight of Kheidir is the most memorable. It reared its mighty walls out of the sand, almost untouched by time, breaking the long lines of the waste with its huge towers, steadfast and massive, as though it were, as I had at first thought it, the work of nature, not of man.21
Upon entering Ukhaidir, Bell found the castle inhabited by a group of Arabs who had come from the Nejd, dissatisfied with the politics of that region and desiring to pursue a more lucrative trade in camels and horses in Ottoman-controlled Mesopotamia. They were using Ukhaidir as their base. The families had camped within many of the rooms, finding the shelter within the castle walls ‘more than sufficient for their needs [than] to the race at whose command it had been reared’.22 Bell was not troubled by the group's habitation of the palace; indeed, to her Orientalist imagination, they enhanced the romantic quality of the place, bringing its ancient character to life. Bell describes Ali, the sheikh of the Jawf, as ‘a splendid creature with black hair falling in plaits on either side of his face’ who, with his brothers, ‘passed like ghosts along the passages, they trailed their white robes down the stairways’.23 At her most lyrical, Bell describes the Arab tribesmen gathered round their hearth in the evening in the great hall of the palace:
where their forefathers had beguiled the hours with tale and song in the same rolling tongue of Nejd […] The thorns crackled, a couple of oil wicks placed in holes above the columns, which had been contrived for them by the men-at-arms of old, sent a feeble ray into the darkness.24
One of their members, playing a single-stringed Bedouin rebabah, sang about a
prince great and powerful, patron of poets, leader of raids, and recently overwhelmed and slain in battle; but old or new, the songs were all pages out of the same chronicle, the undated chronicle of the nomad. The thin melancholy music rose up into the blackness of the vaults; across the opening at the end of the hall, where the wall had fallen in part away, was spread the deep still night and the unchanging beauty of the stars.25
Bell, enchanted by the scene around her, offered up her own verse for Ukhaidir, a quote from the poet Labīd ibn Rabī'ah, which also served as the epigraph for Amurath to Amurath: ‘We wither away but they wane not, the stars that above us rise; / The mountains remain after us, and the strong towers when we are gone.’26
Bell's letters and diaries, which record her first impressions of Ukhaidir, make it clear that she at first believed the palace to be a sixth-century Lakhmid construction, contemporary with the other Lakhmid towns known to be strung out over the Mesopotamian desert to the west of the Euphrates River. Given its assumed identity and her belief that no one had previously planned such a place, it was an exciting prospect to investigate an edifice about which nothing had been properly
studied and published. She set to work immediately, endeavouring to carefully plan the structure in its entirety and to photograph its many elements, no doubt with the objective of completing a full, publishable description upon her return to England.
Bell's planning of Ukhaidir was rudimentary yet thorough. B.T. Watts, her travelling companion, had his surveying instruments, possibly a theodolite, and supplied her with measurements for the long outer and inner lengths of Ukhaidir's fortifications and castle within.27 All other measurements at Ukhaidir, however, were made by Bell with a simple tape measure and foot rule.28 Bell's measurements were duly marked in several pages of a field notebook, in which she produced sketch plans of the various sectors of the complex and their features (Fig. 3.3). The challenges of planning such an enormous and complicated edifice must have been formidable, but Bell was determined to get a complete and accurate record of the palace, spending two full days taking measurements of Ukhaidir's walls, towers and gates, and receiving the assistance of the men from her travel entourage (Fig. 3.4). They took turns holding her measuring tape and carrying her camera: ‘In a day they have learnt exactly what it is I want and they are infinitely useful to me for I simply have to walk after them with my sketch book and write down the figures from the tape.’29
Britain and the Arab Middle East Page 11