Gertrude Lowthian Bell

Gertrude Bell (1868–1926) was an English traveler, archaeologist, mountaineer and political officer. The first woman to take first-class honors in modern history at Oxford, she traveled widely in the Middle East, learned Arabic and Persian and wrote The Desert and the Sown (1907), Amurath to Amurath and archaeological studies such as Palace and Mosque at Ukhaidir (1914). During the First World War her knowledge of the Arab tribes led to work for British intelligence in Cairo and Basra, and afterward she played a central part in shaping the new state of Iraq. She founded the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, where she died in 1926.