The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial)

Remembering Gertrude Bell

Last month Belinda Lewis, Charge d'Affaires, British Embassy Baghdad paid a visit to Gertrude Bell's grave in Baghdad, leaving a tribute from BISI and the British Embassy.

BISI was founded in memory of Gertrude Bell in 1932. An explorer and archaeologist, Bell was instrumental in the foundation of the Iraq Museum.

BISI joined forces with the British Academy in 2013 to hold a conference examining the many facets of Bell's legacy in Iraq, including her role in the making of the Iraqi state. 

At the Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University, you can read Bell's digitised diaries and letters, and her beautiful photographs from her travels in Iraq and the Middle East. 

Belinda Lewis with the care-taker who has tended the cemetery
where Gertrude Bell is buried since the 1940s