Gertrude Bell

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell CBE (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926) was a British writer, traveller, political analyst, administrator in Arabia, and an archaeologist who mapped and identified Anatolian and Mesopotamian ruins. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1917.

Bell and T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) helped to create the Hashemite dynasty in Jordan and define the outline of the modern state of Iraq. She had a role behind the scenes in the Arab revolt in World War I. At the conclusion of the war, she proposed borders within Mesopotamia to include the three Ottoman Empire vilayets that later became Iraq.