Britain and the Arab Middle East

by Cooper, Lisa;

  By today's standards, it has to be admitted that Bell's description and architectural analysis of Ukhaidir falls rather short of what is expected of a comprehensive archaeological report. Particularly notable is its heavy emphasis on the layout and architectural forms of the castle at the expense of other recoverable artefacts, such as pottery, coins and other metal items, animal bones, botanical remains and micromorphological samples. It is certain that these types of evidence could have provided further valuable information about the life of the Ukhaidir complex, especially highlighting the particular activities that went on in and around the palace. We know that Bell, in the brief time that she was actually present at Ukhaidir, had neither the time nor the inclination to excavate or collect such artefactual material; her focus was almost strictly on what could be discerned of the complex's standing remains – namely, its architecture.

  What seems especially missing from Bell's description of Ukhaidir (and from Reuther's and Creswell's accounts as well, for that matter) is a human element. With so much emphasis on brick constructions, domes, arches and vaults, it is as if Bell and the others had forgotten to consider at length the actual people who inhabited this desert complex. To be sure, Bell muses, somewhat romantically, on the ancient prince who inhabited this place, but she falls short of any serious considerations of what this individual, along with his court and entourage, did in its spaces, and how they experienced this marvellous place. How was their behaviour guided by the way in which Ukhaidir was laid out, furnished and adorned? Moreover, how did these things affect and direct their interactions with one another? The recent past's special emphasis on natural and built spaces, and of humans’ experience with such spaces – often facilitated through digital technologies such as 3-D renderings, computer animations and virtual reality – would seem to be a particularly effective means of getting at those considerations, bringing the inhabitants of Ukhaidir back into their remarkable built space.172

  At the same time, it would be wrong to overly disparage Bell's study, especially when one considers the context and time period in which it was carried out and its worth compared to other archaeological works that were being produced at approximately the same time. As reported already, Bell's study of Ukhaidir, with its attention to architectural details that were carefully described, measured, drawn and photographed, was equal to or in some ways exceeded the types of archaeological reports that her contemporaries were producing. Moreover, Bell's detailed observations and conclusions about the origins and development of the pitched brick vault, widely used at Ukhaidir, along with the presence of groin vaults, squinches, domes and masonry tubes, not only helped her and others to formulate a plausible date for Ukhaidir's construction, but also provided insight into the directions from which architectural traditions spread and evolved in late antique and early Islamic Mesopotamia. Bell's work on Ukhaidir was further enhanced by her brilliant identification of a mosque in the palace, along with her historical knowledge of the Sasanian and Early Islamic periods, which helped her to propose a possible builder for the palace and its true identity. In all, Bell's study of Ukhaidir was a remarkable achievement for its time, highlighting well the facility with which she was able to tackle and successfully present a complex, challenging archaeological subject.

  Bell only returned to Ukhaidir once more in her later years, despite having become a resident of Baghdad and being well familiar with the countryside of southern Iraq. Moreover, there was now the convenience of a short motorcar trip to Ukhaidir, which compared comfortably to the long, dusty days on horses and camels that had defined her first expeditions to the desert palace. Bell made the final trip to Ukhaidir in April 1925, accompanied by companions from Baghdad, including her close friend and confidant, Ken Cornwallis. Despite her excitement to see Ukhaidir, however, the trip was a somewhat melancholy experience: additional parts of the palace had fallen in since her last visit, 14 years earlier, and she felt rather ghostlike to be there again, given the sad times that had elapsed in the interval.173 Bell expresses a similar melancholy attitude in an earlier letter, written in 1921, when she passed through the town of Hit, the place from which she had first ventured into the western desert to seek Ukhaidir back in 1909. She recalls wistfully her earlier adventures:

  to me it's too full of the memory of rollicking journeys, of ghosts, which were once me, riding about on camels, before the world which was my world crashed together and foundered. I don't think I'll go there again. I don't like the look of those ghosts – they are too happy and confident. It's I who feel a ghost beside them.174

  Bell's discovery and investigations of Ukhaidir seemed to hold in her memory a profound sweetness and somewhat naive, cheerful expectation that contrasted sharply with her later life and its graver professional achievements, as well as her sobering personal setbacks and heartbreak. After the bittersweet tone of these later reminiscences, it is heartening to return to the concluding lines of the preface to her 1914 monograph on Ukhaidir, which nicely reflect Bell's early captivation with the desert edifice:

  A subject so enchanting and so suggestive as the palace of Ukhaidir is not likely to present itself more than once in a lifetime, and as I bring this page to a close I call to mind the amazement with which I first gazed upon its formidable walls; the romance of my first sojourn within its precincts; the pleasure, undiminished by familiarity, of my return; and the regret with which I sent back across the sun-drenched plain a last greeting to its distant presence. The unknown prince at whose bidding its solitary magnificence rose out of the desert, the unknown lords who dwelt in its courts, cannot at the time of its full splendour have gloried and rejoiced in their handiwork and their inheritance more than I who have known it only in decay; and, in the spirit, I part from it now with as much unwillingness as that which I experienced when I withdrew, further and further, from its actual protection.175

  CHAPTER 4

  ENCOUNTERS IN THE HEART OF MESOPOTAMIA

  Fresh from the excitement of her scientific discovery of Ukhaidir, Gertrude Bell now embarked on the next important phase of her 1909 journey. Her route would take her into the heart of the Tigris and Euphrates alluvial plains of southern Mesopotamia, where she would encounter a host of ruined mounds and monuments testifying to the once-glorious civilizations that existed here in the ancient past. This region had given birth to some of the world's earliest cities and writing systems over 4,000 years ago. It had seen the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires. It had witnessed the exploits of charismatic rulers and conquerors, and had inspired generations of writers, poets and artists to commemorate the deeds of their nations’ leaders, both great and grievous, through monumental, and sometimes poignant, works of art.

  Bell's journey through southern Mesopotamia would expose her to all of these things. She visited the sites that had once served as the capitals of the Babylonians, Assyrians, Sasanians and Abbasids, and she often had the good fortune to experience, first-hand, efforts on the part of archaeologists to recover the art and architecture of those cities. Through her visits and the exchanges she had with other scholars who shared her fascination with the past, she developed a sophisticated understanding of the progress of human history through the ages and an appreciation for the best methods of recovering and chronicling its rich past. Bell's experience in southern Mesopotamia would have a lasting impact on her life and work. It would help her especially to refine her notions about the development of art and architecture in early Islam, and of Ukhaidir's place in this period of continuity and transformation. It broadened her connections within the scholarly world of ancient Near Eastern studies as a whole. It also instilled in her the importance of preserving the past through a careful program of archaeological recovery, documentation and conservation of ancient ruins for the benefit of future generations. All of these experiences would factor into Bell's later life, both in her scholarly achievements and in her future activities in the new country of Iraq.

  Babylon

  On 1 April 1909, having f
inished her records at Ukhaidir, Bell journeyed out of the desert and headed towards the Euphrates River. Her destination now was a group of mounds that make up the ancient city of Babylon. Bell's knowledge of its rich history made her eager to visit the site. Babylon was, after all, one of the most famous and frequently reported cities of the ancient world, documented by Classical authors as the place of the wondrous Hanging Gardens, and by the Bible as the location of the Tower of Babel and palace of the tyrannical King Nebuchadnezzar. But Bell's curiosity in Babylon was piqued by another factor as well: she knew that the ancient city's newest explorers, a team of German archaeologists, had been digging there since 1899. By 1909, they had brought to life many important aspects of the great city, and she hoped that they would be able to give her a personal tour of these discoveries.

  Bell reached the German Expeditionshaus, which was nestled among a grove of date palms by the banks of the Euphrates. She was disappointed to learn that the expedition's director, Robert Koldewey, was unable to see her. Apparently Koldewey had taken ill, the price of his tireless energy working at the site – in particular, of toiling through the previous summer's punishingly hot months.1 Nonetheless, she was received most kindly by Koldewey's assistants, Herr Buddensieg and Herr Wetzel, and shown to a lovely room in the house, with her servants camped comfortably beneath her windows under the palm trees (Fig. 4.1).2 For Bell, this was to be the first of several visits to the dig-house at Babylon and its German archaeologists. In March 1911, after her second inspection of Ukhaidir, she returned to Babylon once more, this time received warmly by a healthy Koldewey. Later still, in the spring of 1914, she came to see Koldewey shortly after the conclusion of her journey to Arabia.3 For Bell, her visits to Babylon were always exceedingly pleasant. Her diaries and letters report her delight at the clean, cool comforts of the dig-house, and the gracious, intellectually stimulating company of her German hosts.4 Later, during World War I, when Bell was able to make frequent trips to Babylon from Baghdad, she would recall the pleasantness of her time with the Germans: ‘They were all so kind to me, the German excavators, and no war can put an end to the affectionate esteem in which I hold Koldewey.’5

  All of Bell's writings make it clear that she was particularly impressed with Koldewey, whom she found charming as a person,6 and whose tireless efforts to make sense of the remains of this enormous site, where many of his predecessors had failed,7 left a tremendous impression upon her (Fig. 4.2). To be sure, Koldewey was an experienced and skilled archaeologist. Trained in architecture and archaeology, by the time of his work at Babylon Koldewey had gained much experience in the Mediterranean regions and the Near East. He had assisted with the German excavations of several sites in Greece, Sicily and Anatolia.8 Koldewey had also excavated briefly at two large Sumerian-period tells in southern Mesopotamia (Surghul and Al Hiba, in 1887), where he had acquired the invaluable experience of uncovering and carefully tracing the remains of sun-dried brickwork.9 His skill with mudbrick proved to be of the utmost importance for successfully excavating the mounds of Babylon, as much of the site's ancient architecture was composed of walls of crude sun-dried bricks. Such material had often eluded earlier excavators because of its close resemblance to the colour and texture of the earth fill that covered it.10 Koldewey ensured that his workmen at Babylon were carefully trained in the art of tracing mudbrick, and having gained mastery over this excavation technique, they were able to delineate accurately the masses of brickwork that made up much of Babylon's ancient structures.

  Fig. 4.1 Gertrude Bell standing outside one of her tents at Babylon in April 1909.

  Fig. 4.2 Bell’s photo of Babylon’s excavation director, Robert Koldewey, sitting on the upper balcony of the German dig-house during her visit in April 1914.

  Koldewey's project was, without question, highly ambitious. Finding Babylon's buildings to be deeply buried, often under up to 21 m of soil, he employed between 200 and 250 workmen at any given time, and excavations were conducted over several months each year. The work continued between 1899 and 1917.11 Attention was paid not only to the articulation of structures from one time period, but to evidence for progress through time, such as the construction of higher foundations, new floor pavements, changes in brick dimensions and new stamped brick inscriptions.12 All of these important temporal observations he fastidiously recorded. Most importantly, Koldewey aimed to produce meticulously detailed architectural plans of the uncovered structures at Babylon, level by level, and this required countless hours of careful planning by him and his German assistants.13 Thanks to these massive efforts, Koldewey was able to recover a great deal of Babylon's gates, defences, temples, palaces, streets and houses, and understand changes in these features through time. These findings were all carefully recorded and photographed, and the resulting plans produced by the German team are still considered masterful in their detail and completeness (Fig. 4.3).14 Altogether, Koldewey's work at Babylon signified a radical transformation in the aims and objectives of Near Eastern archaeology. Excavation now became less concerned with the discovery of treasures and tablets, and more about uncovering all of the facets of an ancient city, chronicling its history and carefully documenting the lives of its ancient inhabitants, an aim that modern archaeologists still strive for today.

  By the time of Bell's 1909 visit to Babylon, many of the site's key monuments had been exposed by Koldewey and his team. They had laid bare several structures of the period of Nebuchadnezzar, who had reigned over the city and the Babylonian empire from 605 to 562 bce and had been responsible for greatly enlarging and embellishing the city. Bell was shown many of these excavated remains. She saw, for example, the Via Sacra, also referred to as the Processional Way, a long street that entered the Inner City of Babylon at its north end and passed through the centre of the city in the direction of the temple precinct of the city's supreme deity, Marduk.15 As it approached the Inner City, the Processional Way was bordered by high, baked brick walls, and these were in turn embellished with processions of lions, produced in raised relief from moulded bricks and covered with coloured glaze.16 Equally striking but perhaps more impressive was the gate at the northern end of the Inner City, through which this majestic avenue passed, named after Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of love and protectress of the army. Bell called the Ishtar Gate the ‘most magnificent fragment that remains of all Nebuchadnezzar's constructions’, impressed as she was by its set of double towers, which reared ‘their unbroken height in stupendous masses of solid masonry’ (Fig. 4.4).17 She likewise observed the decoration on the gates – alternating rows of bulls and dragons, cast in relief on moulded bricks (Fig. 4.5).18 Bell's German hosts also showed Bell through the extensive brick ruins comprising the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar (also known as the Southern Palace), which lies to the west of the Processional Way and Ishtar Gate at the northern end of the Inner City. Bell observed the interior of the palace, which ‘was a bewildering complexity of small courts and passages’,19 and took special note of the king's massive oblong throne room, the presumed setting of the Biblical story of Belshazzar's feast. Bell also saw earlier structures beneath Nebuchadnezzar's palatial structure, including the smaller palace of his father, Nabopolassar (626–605 BCE),20 and fortified towers made of bricks stamped with the name of the Neo-Assyrian king Sargon II (721–705 BCE).21 Her observations emphasized not only the tremendous labours of the German excavators to reveal these features – which were often found at great depths in the soil – but their keen sense of architectural stratigraphy and their diligent efforts to expose and record the history of Babylon's buildings in all of their remarkable detail.

  Fig. 4.3 The German plan of Babylon, showing the architecture of the excavated areas. The Palace of Nebuchadnezzar and the nearby Ishtar Gate are visible above the centre of the plan on the left. Below centre on the left is the black square marking the place of the Marduk ziggurat (‘E-Temenanki’) and the city’s principal temple (‘E-sagila’).