The Bents’ third significant field of studies was the Middle East, beginning with an expedition to the ‘Mounds of Ali’, Bahrain (1889), followed weeks later by an historic horseback journey, south-north, through Persia. Bent’s interest in the ‘Phoenicians’ piqued, the celebrity explorers embarked on three adventures between 1894-7, to the Yemen (specifically the inhospitable ‘Wadi Hadramut‘, including stays in Muscat, Oman, and Sokotra). These tours generated an extensive corpus of popular and more ‘academic’ articles (historical, ‘archaeological’ and ‘ethnographic’ in content). Along the way they acquired artefacts, ancient and modern, that they would seek to sell or retain for their private London collection. The British Museum, for example, has a large collection of their material. The rigours of travel finally took their toll on Theodore Bent; he died, aged just 45, shortly after returning from Aden (5 May 1897). Had he lived, he would certainly have written a book or two encompassing these adventures, as it transpired, it was left to his widow, Mabel, to assemble the comprehensive monograph that remains the great tribute to their work in Southern Arabia (1900).
Bent’s writings on the Middle East by year of publication:
1889
- ‘How H.M. The Shah Travels When at Home’. The Fortnightly Review, Vol. 52 (46) (Jul), 71-6. [Reprinted in Littell’s Living Age, 1889. Vol. 182 (1889), 457 ff.]
- ‘The Ancient Home of the Phoenicians’. The Classical Review, Vol. 3 (9) (Nov), 420-1. [Bahrain]
- ‘The Mounds of Bahrein’. Athenæum, Issue 3219 (Jul), 38.
1890
- ‘New Year’s Day in a Persian Village’. English Illustrated Magazine, Vol. 76 (Jan), 326-31.
- ‘The Bahrein Islands, in the Persian Gulf’. Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, Vol. 12 (1) (Jan), 1-19.
1891
- ‘In the Mountains of Media’. The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 270 (Feb), 124-39. [Reprinted in Littell’s Living Age, Vol. 189 (1891), 49ff]
- ‘Village Life in Persia’. The National Review, Vol. 5 (Oct), 355-66. [Reprinted in Littell’s Living Age, Vol. 191 (1891), 747ff]
1893
1894
- ‘Expedition to the Hadramut’. The Geographical Journal, Vol. 4 (4) (Oct), 315-31.
- ‘The Hadramut: A Journey in Southern Arabia’. The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 36 (211) (Sept), 419-37. [Reprinted in Littell’s Living Age, Vol. 203 (1894), 81ff]
1895
- ‘Exploration of the Frankincense Country, Southern Arabia’. The Geographical Journal, Vol. 6 (2) (Aug), 109-33.
- ‘Muscat’. Contemporary Review, Vol. 68 (Jul/Dec), 871-82. [Reprinted in Littell’s Living Age, Vol. 208 (1896), 169ff]
- ‘The Land of Frankincense and Myrrh’. The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 38 (224) (Oct), 595-613. [Reprinted in Littell’s Living Age, Vol. 207 (1895), 342ff]
- ‘The Exploration of Southern Arabia – Report of the Committee’.Report of the Sixty-Fifth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Ipswich 1895, John Murray, pp. 491ff.
- ‘The People of Southern Arabia’. Report of the Sixty-Fifth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Ipswich 1895, John Murray, p.835.
1897
For Bent’s overall bibliography click here.