A list of Theodore Bent’s ‘Middle East’ articles/publications.

The region of the ‘Wadi Hadramut’, Yemen, the setting for three explorations by the Bents in the 1890s (archive.org).

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

1890

1891

1893

1894

1895

1897

 

For Bent’s overall bibliography click here.