Key Information
Register:
InternationalYear of Inscription:
2017Type of Heritage:
ArchiveNominating Institution:
Newcastle University
The Gertrude Bell Archive
This substantial archive is a perspective dating from the late 19th and early 20th century. The Gertrude Bell archive preserves numerous examples of people and places across the world now dramatically changed: many deliberately destroyed by population transfer, ethnic cleansing and wars.
Gertrude Bell was unique to have worked in the British administration of Iraq during the creation of that state, a legacy that continues to have an ongoing impact on the contemporary Middle East, Europe and worldwide. Bell’s personal perspective on the transitional period, from the countries in Europe and in the Ottoman Empire before World War I until 1926, provides unique, irreplaceable documentation of the formation of the Middle East and her instrumental role in that process.
Diaspora communities now spread across the world take an active interest in these memories, and the significance of the Middle East for current affairs in the modern world make this archive of world-wide significance and interest.
