Author: Gerald Brisch

Celebrity explorers Theodore and Mabel Bent marked the Persian New Year (No-Rooz) of March 1889 at Yezd-i-Khast, south of Isfahan. The couple were on a famous ride, south-north almost the whole length of Persia, returning to London from Bahrain.

Mabel’s account of the ride from her diaries is transcribed in The Travel Chronicles of Mabel Bent, Vol. 3 (Oxford, 2012), whereas Theodore wrote to articles about the trip, the second being the account of New Year as Yezd-i-Khast, transcribed below.

• ‘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.]
• ‘New Year’s Day in a Persian Village’. English Illustrated Magazine, Vol. 76 (Jan 1890), 326-31.

New Year’s Day In A Persian Village, by J. Theodore Bent

Several motives induced us to stop at Yezd-i-khast for the Persian New Year’s festival or Aid-i-No-Rooz, as they call it there. Firstly, we were personally very tired of our caravan journey up through this country of mountain and desert; secondly, our muleteers, without positively refusing to go on, made it understood that they would consider it a great favour to do so; thirdly, Yezd-i-khast is one of the most extraordinary places in Persia, a paradise for the sketcher and photographer, and here in the midst of this primitive life, quite the oldest of New Year’s customs could be with advantage studied.

Curiously enough we had reached our destination almost exactly at the hour at which the Persian New Year was commencing, namely, at one o’clock on the 25th of March, the moment when the sun entered Aries, and it was amusing to see how excited every one became at this juncture; how on the firing of certain guns, which announced the propitious moment, every man saluted his neighbour with a kiss, saying as he did so, ‘May your New Year be happy’; how they strove to have money in their hands or something of value, that the New Year might produce for them much of it. This is the origin of that funny present of coins given by the Shah on New Year’s day to his Ministers and foreign Ambassadors, gold and silver coins, which are not taken in circulation, but are made by the recipients into ornaments for their wives.

Whilst we are unpacking our beds and making ourselves as comfortable as circumstances will permit in a room closely resembling an outhouse in a farmyard, let us for a moment ponder over the obscure origin of this Persian New Year festival. It is perhaps the oldest festival celebrated in the world. The Persians themselves, with their love of the fabulous, will tell you that their mythical hero, Jemsheed, instituted it, he who built Persepolis and entered it on New Year’s day, he who invented the plough, the fairy godmother in fact of Iran. He divided time into two kinds of years, civil and religious, and instituted the feast of the New Year to commemorate the event, a feast which in those long-past ages lasted only for six days, but which in these degenerate days has been extended to thirteen, during which time everything in Persia is more at a standstill than usual, so that you can hardly obtain the ordinary necessaries of life in the bazaars.

All that is certain about the festival is its extreme antiquity. Centuries ago the Persian poet, Firdousi, describes it in his verses as a time of protracted feasting and idleness much as it is now, and though the moon is made to govern the present official year of the Persian, the sun still governs the agricultural; the farmer of to-day speaks of the reaping month, the sowing month, the ploughing month, he does not understand names of so modern an invention as the early Mussulman conquest, he goes back to the days when the sun governed everything in the land, and the now almost extinct influence of the sun-worshipping Parsee was supreme.

Hence the festival of the No-Rooz is a distinct survival of the days of sun-worship, it marks the commencement of a new life in nature, it attributes the bursting forth of Spring, the return of warmth, to the rays of the deity, and the existence of such a festival in a Mohammedan country is a concession from the new order of things to the past, a concession which is further recognizable in the calls to prayer from the minaret at sunrise and sunset, the universal prostrations just before and after the rising and setting of the great heavenly luminary, and many other little acts of daily life, which have survived from sun-worshipping days in Persia.

The No-Rooz is distinctly the ‘Christmas’ of the Persians, the great family feast, at which everybody gives and receives a present; the heads of families keep open house, and the women in their harems consume an unconscionable amount of sweets. Wherever we had stopped for weeks before, each household was busying itself in preparing its No-Rooz sweets, and in such towns as Yezd and Ispahan enormous quantities are manufactured three months before and dispersed for sale over the country by caravans. Eggs are collected for weeks beforehand and hard boiled, coloured red and yellow, exactly like our Easter eggs, pointing to the same origin-the commemoration of springtide, and the resurrection of nature from its grave. In their season fruits of all kinds, melons, grapes, apples and pomegranates are cunningly preserved and stored away for consumption during the festival of No-Rooz.

At the Shah’s court the system of New Year’s gifts is carried on to an alarming extent. His Majesty, if he wishes to reward a faithful servant, sends him into the provinces to collect these New Year gifts; he is authorized to get for himself what perquisites he can, and, as usually happens, the middleman gets the lion’s share. At this festive season coats of honour are sent to governors of provinces, mayors of towns and leading dignitaries, the price to be paid for receiving the honour being usually stipulated beforehand. The very common Persian word of ‘pishkesh’ (present), a word by no means confined to this season of the year, is on everybody’s lips from the Shah on his throne down to the humblest individual in the village. The dervishes are perhaps the worst beggars of all. At No-Rooz they get from their chief, the dervish bashi, their orders, and are billeted, so to speak, on stated individuals. With their ragged clothes, knobbed stick, wallet, and horn they duly appear at their victim’s door, without cessation blowing their horn and screaming ‘Yahák, Yahák!’ until their New Year’s gift is brought. If this does not satisfy them, they pitch their tent at his door and blow their horn, until they have reduced the householder to order.

Two hundred feet above us towered the lofty rock on which the town is perched. Its tiny wooden balconies hang over space and look terribly insecure; here live the inhabitants, and from here they cast their offal to the terror of those below; beneath, in caves cut in the rock, live the flocks, and from amongst the fields around spring up uncanny looking boulders, which at various times have been detached from the rock above. The aspect of the place is quite awe-inspiring, and as we wandered on the mud roof of our home above the stables we thought we knew not a place in the world with which to compare it.

The village, or town I suppose we ought to call it, is built on the top of a long, lofty rock, rising up in the centre of a narrow ravine-a truly historical ravine – which in bygone ages was a portion of the boundary line between the two kingdoms of the Medes and Persians, and which now divides the two provinces of Persia of Fars and Irak Adjemi, the scene of many a bloody conflict, even within the memory of man.

There is a gradual ascent in a southerly direction from the post-house, which is situated at the northern end of the rock; we passed by enclosures for the cattle of the community and deep caves, where the newly-born of goats and sheep were skipping and bleating, until at the south end of the rock a spot is reached where the ground is so high that by a rickety bridge you can cross a chasm, and enter the town through a hole in the wall; in former years there was a drawbridge, now there is only a frail thing made of trees, which requires a good head and firm step to cross. This is the only approach to the town.

Just before you step on to the bridge there is a small square enclosure for public prayers, it is the great meeting place of the town, and towards sunset on the first day of the year it was so crowded by worshippers that there was not nearly room for them all, and they had to make their prostrations in their turn. Everybody appeared to be dressed in new clothes, for no Persian however poor would enter on a new year without some new garment, and they all looked particularly clean, for it is the custom on the day before the feast for everyone to go to the bath, to have his hair dyed black and his nails dyed yellow with henna.

I never saw a more dismal spot in my life than the interior of Yezd-i-khast. One long street like a tunnel, with occasional glimpses of the upper air, runs from one end of the rock to the other; as you enter the gateway the chilly atmosphere of a vault strikes upon you. The gatekeeper was in his hole to the right, behind the door which he shuts at night – a hole not large enough to lie down in. He was crouching over a charcoal brazier, on which simmered a coffee-pot; he is a blear-eyed, ragged old man, who looks as if he was in a perpetual shiver, and as if he was immured alive in a tomb, which any respectable corpse would reject with scorn. As we stumbled along in the dark, we nearly fell over an old woman selling dried grapes and other luxuries, using as weights round stones and shells in a pair of scales which any inspector would condemn at first sight. They took us to see the mosque, a tumble-down structure, with worm-eaten screens and pulpit, walls all over scribblings and pictures, we presumed, by local artists; to the left of the mosque is an open platform built over space and affording an alarming view into the abyss below. Into the walls of this sacred edifice are built several fragments from an ancient temple-probably a fire-temple of the old Zoroastrian days; on the hills all round are ruins of temples of this ancient cult. This neighbourhood was in the very heart of the fire-worshippers’ region, so without doubt so conspicuous an eminence as Yezd-i-khast must also have had its temple.

Our first visit next day was to the Mayor, who gave us a very cordial welcome at the top of his stairs. He was very grand indeed to-day, in his coat of honour (kalat), a beautiful quilted coat of white cashmere embroidered with red. On reception days the Mayor must always wear this mark of honour, about which we were not a little curious, and learnt that the Prince Governor of Shiraz had given it to him on New Year’s Day, two years ago, and he told us furthermore how he had had to go two stages on the road to meet it with the best retinue he could muster, and how he had had to give a sum equivalent to £50 for the honour, fully twice as much as it was worth. This sum had been fixed beforehand, and he had had to sign a written document to the effect that he had received the coat and had given so much for it; so mercenary have honours become in Persia. Now, the Mayor of Yezd-i-khast is entitled to the title of khan, having at the same time received a firman or letters patent, which he had to wear in his cap for three days so that all the world might know the honour which had befallen him, and any one refusing to acknowledge his position would henceforth be liable to be punished capitally.

The Mayor’s room was dingy, but of festive appearance, the mud-floor was spread with carpets, the brass ‘samovar’ or tea-urn was hissing pleasantly, trays of nuts, dates, and various kinds of dried fruits were spread around, and in solemn circle squatted on their haunches all the notables of the place were smoking their water-pipes. As each guest came in, he greeted the Mayor and wished him a good New Year; equals kissed him on both cheeks, inferiors only took his right hand in theirs, and after giving it an affectionate squeeze raised it to their lips to kiss.

After taking leave of the Mayor we were pounced upon and carried off to the residence of the mollah, or parish priest. His reverence was seated on his carpet, with a clean white turban and new flowing robes. His water-pipe was bubbling away and placed on a dish in which seeds had been sown some weeks ago, so that they might grow up green and fresh for the New Year’s festivities. This is a common custom in Persia. Every good housewife will have a dish of green corn ready for the feast of No-Rooz. It is a sort of symbol of the return of spring, an offering to Demeter, a survival of paganism; this dish is kept in the house for the thirteen days of feasting, and the corn is then thrown away. Also they will take a lump of young wheat from the field, roots and all, and this they will stick over their doors and not pull it down till it is withered.

Next we visited the cemetery of Yezd-i-khast, which is gathered around a little sacred tomb containing the remains of one Imam Riza, of holy memory. It is quite a plain building of red bricks, with a dome, around which on this festive occasion many people were gathered. The most devout kissed with avidity the walls of the tomb; the more callous walked past and chatted gaily; the more sentimental went and had a wail at the tombs of their departed relatives, and then joined the gay and festive concourse again. It is the fashion for all the world to go to the tombs on New Year’s Day, and it was a curious scene. We stood at a little distance and watched, until we became aware that our presence was not appreciated by the multitude; sundry stones were cast at us, angry voices were raised, the volleys increased in intensity, actually falling within a few feet of us, so we felt obliged to beat as dignified a retreat as we could ‘under fire’.

We thought it necessary to let the ket-khoda know that, though unhurt in body, we were hurt in mind at the indignity we had suffered, whereupon a deputation of the chief men of the place waited upon us, begged us to believe that the casters of the stones were some ruffians from another village whom they had no means of punishing as they deserved, and implored us to say nothing about the matter at Ispahan, or else they, our best and dearest friends, who would not for worlds that a hair of our heads should suffer, would have a heavy fine to pay, and get into discredit at head-quarters; for the Zil-es-Sultan, the Shah’s eldest son, and governor of Ispahan, is only too anxious to get hold of similar causes of complaint, to visit villages in his district with a punishment which would fill his own pockets. Magnanimously we consented to be appeased, and with the interchange of fulsome compliments the deputation departed.

All Yezd-i-khast was out that afternoon, strolling about its ravine and making merry. Here and there a luti, or travelling buffoon, performed odd antics to an admiring audience; dervishes sang quaint ditties in their harsh, sepulchral tones, which with certain ventriloquistic effects were odd enough to listen to. One horrible black-faced dervish perpetually dogged our footsteps, and sang a comic song at the expense of unbelievers, which made us a little nervous after the stone episode of the earlier afternoon; but he left us at last, and pursued more profitable victims. Women were out in great numbers too. Every one seemed gay and intent on holiday-making, and the little town on its rocky perch was almost emptied of its inhabitants.

Next morning early we were in the saddle again; the ket-khoda and chief men of the town were all assembled to bid us farewell and to intreat us once more to say nothing about the episode of the stones; and before the ice had melted on the puddles we were on our weary way once more, and three days saw us in Ispahan.

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After Vanessa Gordon, author of The Naxos Mysteries, kindly contributed to our Reading “The Cyclades” series, we asked if she would like to write us a short piece about her erstwhile Cycladic encounters with Theodore and Mabel Bent, and were delighted when she agreed.

Beginning her article on the island of Antiparos, where the Bents spent some happy weeks in early 1884, making their own mysterious discoveries, Vanessa writes…     

We eventually reached Antiparos, having made several visits to its larger neighbour, Paros, on other trips without managing to include Antiparos in our itinerary.

By the time I stood on the southern shore of Antiparos, looking out over the islet of Despotiko, I already knew something about Theodore and Mabel Bent. Their activities here had made an impression on me when I first read Theodore’s book The Cyclades, or Life among the Insular Greeks (1885), which I had discovered on the  bookcase of a good friend in Athens who, being a classicist and archaeologist, had many interesting books that I scanned and subsequently acquired.

Imagine my disappointment, then, when we were told that there would be no more ferry crossings to Despotiko that day.  My husband and I consoled ourselves with a superb fish lunch, and resolved to return the following summer.

And so we did, and were much better prepared that time. Schedules had been consulted and hours put aside for exploring on Despotiko. In fact, we arrived too early, and ordered a coffee at a taverna close to the jetty. There we met another English couple, Steve and Diana, and a conversation began. They, too, were waiting for the ferry to Despotiko, and we ended up spending the whole day together. We first visited the ruined Sanctuary of Apollo, where the Bents had been long before us, and then re-boarded the ferry which took us round the coast to a swimming bay at the far side of the islet. It was there, as we walked into the warm water to have our swim, that our companions informed us they were once members of the British Olympic swimming team. We have remained friends ever since.

It was a serendipitous first encounter with the indomitable Bents, although with our new friends, and the inevitable feast afterwards at the local taverna, I’m not sure just how much I thought about them after we left the sanctuary. By the end of the day, though, I regarded them in a different way from how I had thought of them on reading Life Among the Insular Greeks. I had picked up even then that Theodore’s approach to antiquity was, in a sense, rather cavalier. I had formed an impression that some things might have been damaged in his search for other antiquities. That was understandable: these were early days, and the principles of archaeology, especially concerning the protection, conservation and sensitive excavation of finds, had barely been established at the time – and not established at all in the mind of Theodore. What else was to be expected from an enthusiastic explorer in a science that was barely past its adolescence? The bond I had formed with Theodore, therefore, was a fellow-feeling between two come-lately but passionate amateurs. I also admired him, of course, for having done so much in the pursuit of his passion, undeterred by hardships, adversity and ill-health.

Then there was Mabel, his wife. Photographer and diarist, older than her husband, vivacious Irish woman, desperate to escape the confines of Victorian Ireland, she had accepted Theodore as her husband and his proposal to travel to foreign lands. They had set off soon after their wedding (1877) and were to explore together for many years; even after Theodore’s early death, Mabel continued this journeying. I was reminded of Joan Leigh-Fermor, partner and wife of Paddy, who crossed Greece with him in an era when it was almost as difficult to do so as for the Bents. Also of Agatha Christie, whose late marriage to Max Mallowan had taken her to remote archaeological sites in Egypt, where, with her trusty typewriter in her luggage, she had written some of her mysteries in makeshift accommodation in the desert. These were women whose husbands – archaeologists and explorers, writers and travellers – had opened up for them the possibility of a life which most women of the time had no chance to experience.

So it was that, inevitably perhaps, I introduced small references to the Bents in my own writing. The Naxos Mysteries pivot on archaeology and history, and my hero Martin Day gives long and enthusiastic explanations on his beloved subject to anyone who will listen. This gives me the perfect platform for introducing all sorts of interesting historical anecdotes into my books, and this includes the Bents.

It is not Martin Day, however, who first introduces the Bents to my readers: it is an elderly retired academic called Edward Childe, a character who quickly became one of my favourites. Edward persuades Day to create a documentary series on the subject of Greek marble, a series which is to be structured using Edward’s eclectic collection of historical memorabilia which, he explains, includes some unusual letters:

“There will be a major focus on Naxos, not only as a historic centre for Greek marble but also because I have some letters written by Mrs Mabel Bent to a friend in London, in which she describes how she and her more renowned husband Theodore were exploring Naxos in the late nineteenth century. I also have a couple of her photographs. One of them shows the Kouros of Apollo.”
“How on earth did you get hold of the Bent material, Edward?” interrupted Day.
“The letters were left to me when I was a student by an Oxford classicist I very much admired. His name was Augustus Bent Middleton. I don’t know if there’s a family connection with the famous Bents – perhaps you’d like to look into it, Martin?” (The Search for Artemis, 2021)

How did Edward acquire such material, you may ask? Mabel’s diaries, which formed the basis of her husband’s famous books, are in safe keeping now, not to mention being digitally accessible; but this is fiction, and there is always the chance of personal letters showing up decades later, don’t you agree?

The Bents are mentioned again later in the same book, when Day talks about them to his friend (later wife) Helen, in his usual, informative way:

“Edward said he had original letters from the wife of Theodore Bent. Do you know about him?”
“No, who was he?”
“He was a young Englishman from Yorkshire who lived at the same time as the giants of archaeology, like Arthur Evans and Heinrich Schliemann. ^note 1  He was completely self-taught, very young and inexperienced. Undeterred, he committed his short life to travel and archaeology, and his equally young wife Mabel went with him. They travelled through the Cyclades, writing about what they saw, not only about the ancient remains they found but also the lives of the local people. I’ll lend you the book, it makes good reading. It’s called something like Life among the Insular Greeks, I have a copy here in the house. Theodore was an Oxford graduate with no experience of excavation, yet when he had an opportunity to excavate on Antiparos, off Paros, it made his reputation. He died tragically young, in his mid-forties. His wife wrote travel notebooks, which are in library collections in London. Edward told me that he had some letters she wrote to a friend describing her time on Naxos with Theodore. I’ve seen her notebooks; I’d love to see those letters. ^note 2 ”
“I’d like to read the book.” (The Search for Artemis, 2021)

Another Naxos Mystery in which the Bents are specifically mentioned is The House in Apíranthos. The book is structured around a series of filming sessions, already referred to in The Search for Artemis, that take place at locations in the Cyclades. Day is presenting episodes based on current excavation sites, one of which is the exciting sanctuary on Despotiko, which I had visited years earlier with our new Olympian friends (see above). Here he is speaking into the camera:

“Welcome to the Sanctuary of Apollo on the island of Despotiko. This is one of the most important excavations currently being undertaken in Greece, yet it is also one of the least well-known. Despotiko has been uninhabited for some time, protected by law both for its unspoilt natural habitat and its archaeological significance. Its long history, since first being mentioned by Pliny the Elder, has involved Venetians, Ottomans, and even pirates, and the English traveller Theodore Bent was here in the second half of the nineteenth century. Christos Tsountas, the brilliant Greek archaeologist, began excavating here at the end of that century, and more discoveries were made in the 1950s when an early Cycladic settlement was found.”
Day paused slightly to allow Ben to change to a different angle for the next line.
“Then, in 1997, the current excavation here began.”
He put on his sunglasses and turned away from the camera. ^note 3  (The House in Apíranthos, 2024)

And with that brief reference I abandon Theodore and Mabel to their bravely-earned place in the history of early archaeological exploration and travel, but with a great deal of respect and fondness. There is just one more memory to share with you.

I was giving a talk on Naxos in 2025 to an audience of readers, archaeologists and locals about The House in Apíranthos. During the Q&A session I was surprised and delighted when one of the archaeologists expressed her pleasure that I knew about the Bents. I wondered fleetingly whether my introducing them had seemed rather presumptuous to readers not familiar with them, but the thought faded quickly. The Bents deserve their place and they are welcome in my books, not least because of the special bond I made with them, long gone though they are, on the island of Despotiko.

 The Secrets of Stelida, Vanessa’s 7th book in ‘The Naxos Mysteries’ series has just been published (Spring 2026).

Footnotes

Some further reading:

J. Theodore Bent, The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks (an edited reprint, Oxford, 2002)
The Travel Chronicles of Mrs J. Theodore Bent, Vol. 1: Greece and the Levantine Littoral (Oxford, 2006)
A selection of Theodore Bent’s articles on Greece
Scanned versions of Mabel Bent’s ‘Chronicles’ from the Hellenic Society’s archive
‘Of Crows and Swans and Calamine – the Archaeology Theatre of Antiparos’
‘The skeletal material excavated on Antiparos in 1883/4 by Theodore Bent’
In exalted female company – Mabel Bent, other women travellers, and the RGS women Fellows scandal of 1893

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“Much of the excitement of archaeology has come from the discovery of long-dead languages or their decipherment. The Rosetta stone; the Dead Sea Scrolls; Linear B are all phrases associated with great discoveries and, in some cases, great academic quarrels. Few of these, however, have been more intriguing than the controversy which arose from the discovery in 1957 of a fragment of a stamp seal, during excavations at Bethel, not far from
Jerusalem.” (I. Blake, ‘The Bethel Stamp Seal: A Mystery Revealed?’, The Irish Times, 16 August 1973)

The mystery begins

In 1957 an inscribed, and seemingly insignificant, lump of pottery was found by the archaeologist James Kelso, 1.90 m below surface level while excavating at Tel Beitîn, the important Biblical site of Bethel, about 20 km north of Jerusalem, which was first  explored by William Foxwell Albright in 1934, a few years after Mabel Bent’s death in London in 1929. This modest clay find, best described as originally a rectangle c. 10 cm long and 7 cm high, inscribed, and with the remains of a ‘handle’ on the reverse – but found with the top left-hand corner broken off – was soon recognized as a stamp or seal, used presumably by a merchant for designating ownership, or contents, of traded merchandise, let’s say frankincense from Yemen.

It was soon also recognized that the find was far from insignificant and very possibly far from home. Two scholars, Gus Van Beek and Albert Jamme, published the find a year later. ^note 1  In 1960 Jamme made a major discovery of his own that was to bring Mabel Bent into the story. While looking through a collection of paper ‘squeezes’ (papier-mâché impressions), ^note 2  Jamme had one of those flashes of association and recognized the startling similarity of the impression with the clay stamp dug up from Bethel a few years previously. He published his discovery with Van Beek in 1961, ^note 3  being of the ‘opinion that the two seals are identical, yet distinct’ and that the ‘South-Arabian character of the stamp… is beyond any possible doubt’ and totally ‘excludes the possibility that it was introduced in modern times’. To Van Beek and Jamme the seal proved an early link between the spice and luxuries routes of South Arabia, beginning some 2000 km to the south, and linking South Arabia with Palestine, King Solomon with the Queen of Sheba – a thesis that would have delighted Theodore Bent beyond measure. ‘We are of the opinion that the two seals are identical, yet distinct.’

Two seals? Kelso’s 1957 find and Glaser’s squeeze A 727 – the latter representing none other than Theodore’s find from the Al-Mashad region of the Wadi Doan in the Hadramaut, and the object illustrated (items 3 and 6) in the top image here (reproduced in Southern Arabia, opposite p. 436). Unfortunately it is not clear from Mabel’s diary, her Chronicle, where and when they acquired the object; its relative insignificance may be the reason – in contrast to the two other stamps/seals of copper and gold the couple also acquired in the Hadramaut.

For the Israeli scholar Professor Yigael Yadin the seals were too close for comfort, and in his 1969 paper ^note 4  he declares they are ‘but one and the same’ and therefore Van Beek and Jamme’s conjecture about the historical, even Biblical, link between the frankincense routes of the south and Bethel and beyond to the north was overstated and weakened. The gist of Yadin’s argument is that there is but one stamp, and that the Bents’ find had somehow arrived later at Bethel; indeed the similarities are so close that opinion still remains divided today – aggravated by the fact that the whereabouts of the stamp (or either stamp) are uncertain.

In 1970 Van Beek and Jamme, ^note 5  and also Kelso, ^note 6  replied in further contributions to the debate, the tone of which grows cooler as the debate heats up. How was it possible that a stray find from the Hadramaut could reappear in ancient Bethel? ‘The coincidence, therefore, of the seal being lost at Bethel, one of the three temples citied in ancient Israel in which such a seal would likely be found because of their connections with incense trade, is altogether unbelievable… Since there were two identical but distinct stamps, the historical, economic, and cultural significance of the Bethel stamp remains as we originally described.’

Yadin’s torch, however, was picked up three years later, understatedly and brilliantly, by Ray Cleveland (1973), ^note 7  who put two and two together, hypothesizing that Mabel Bent might well have taken the stamp to Bethel and buried it there. Cleveland, in part, based his theory on Mabel’s note in her very odd little tract Anglo-Saxons from Palestine ^note 8  that she was in the course of writing while in in the region. He also suggested that, badly missing Theodore, her mental state was distressed. A reporter for The Irish Times (1973) ^note 9  quickly realized the human interest of all this – especially its associations with a prominent Irish family – and published easily the most accessible account of what was turning from a controversy into a melodrama.

For some reason Jamme does not seem to have countered confidently until 1990, ^note 10  even though his strongly-held views on the significance of the two stamps were under fire. But when he did reply he did not pull his punches, disregarding Cleveland’s paper as groundless in terms of Mabel’s fragile mental state and assuming that Cleveland was accusing her of simple fraud: ‘Such an accusation of fraud – unique in the annals of archaeology, levelled against a lady respected by everyone interested in ancient South Arabia and who, having died on July 3, 1929, could not defend herself – was shocking in itself.’ And thus: ‘Mrs. Bent’s memory was and remains unblemished and unscathed in spite of Cleveland’s charge. But the latter’s unprovoked, unsubstantiated indictment based on the uncalled-for intrusion upon the intimate, affective life of a widow has become the first true mystery of the whole affair because the reader cannot even remotely fathom what the reason behind such an irresponsible accusation of fraud might have been.’

What Jamme, and Cleveland, were unaware of was that Mabel was a frequent traveller to Jerusalem and Palestine in the first decade of the 1900s (and after Theodore’s death), and she soon began to demonstrate apparently irrational behaviour, taking sides in a romantic squabble between two British residents in Jerusalem. On another occasion, now over 60, she rode off mysteriously and alone into the countryside, falling off her mount and breaking her leg. ^note 11  A convert to British Israelitism, she became involved in the committee of the ‘Garden Tomb’ (Jerusalem), ^note 12  and began the bizarre Anglo-Saxons from Palestine referred to above which attempted to identify a tribal connection between the Jews and the British.

It seems apparent that Mabel believed that Theodore’s twenty years of travel and work were ultimately little valued by the establishment. She must have been disillusioned by the Royal Geographical Society both overlooking her husband and implicating her in the row over women RGS Fellows there. Stinging too, was the gradual unravelling of Bent’s theories on the history of the ruins at Great Zimbabwe. She must also have been hurt at some of the criticism aimed at Southern Arabia, the now-classic monograph Mabel assembled after Theodore’s death (from her Chronicles and his notebooks and articles). There are enough indicators that Mabel was fast becoming an outsider.

Returning to the ‘Bethel Stamp’, Jamme’s earlier claim that it represented a clear link between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba is not supported today, although it is important evidence of South Arabian contacts. The coincidence of two identical seals may be just that, a coincidence. After all, was it not possible that there was a sort of ‘mass production’ of these items going on from a prototype, with the stamp prone to breaking along a common fault and then being discarded? ^note 13  Kelso’s rational comment in 1970 (p.61) is still persuasive: ‘it seems reasonable to assume that [the stamp] was lost or deliberately abandoned by some incense caravan in the ninth century B.C.’

However, if Mabel was unhappy at Bethel, is it not also rather easy to imagine her in a lonely moment in the early 1900s dropping a broken clay stamp from the Hadramaut into a hole and covering it up – speaking the while to her dead husband, with whom she had travelled such landscapes for nearly twenty years, about how she had brought him, at last, to the end of the frankincense trail, among ‘the arrant spices of the sun’? What could be more forgivable – not deliberate archaeological fraud but, rather, fondness. And, indeed, there are three seals she mentions in Southern Arabia – where did she drop the other two? Jerusalem, Hebron, Mizpah? There is hope.

Sources

Southern Arabia = Theodore and Mabel Bent, Southern Arabia, London, 1900.
Chronicle = The Travel Chronicles of Mrs. J. Theodore Bent, Vol.3, 2010, Oxford: Archaeopress.

And see also a previous article on this site: Mabel and the vanished ‘Bethel Seal’

Footnotes

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Who better than Vanessa Gordon, author of The Naxos Mysteries, to read extracts from the Bents’ eventful Xmas 1883/4 visit to that island for our ‘Reading The Cyclades’ project marking the 140th (1885-2025) anniversary of Theodore Bent’s classic The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks.

Click here for other readings and if you would like to join in, do contact us.

Naxos [Bent’s Ch. 14: Sunday, 23 December 1883 – Monday, 7 January 1884]

Our third reading from Bent’s extended Naxos chapter taken from his classic 1885 Cyclades travelogue is provided by Vanessa Gordon, author of the six books in the series The Naxos Mysteries, all to do with ‘archaeology, mystery and murder on the beautiful Greek island of Naxos’, involving her lead character, the archaeologist Martin Day; all themes, not totally disconnected from Theodore Bent’s narrative. ^note 1 

We should not be surprised, therefore, to find Theodore and Mabel making cameo appearances in two of Vanessa’s books – The Search for Artemis (2021, pp. 39-49, 129-30) and The House in Apíranthos (2024, p. 142) – this latter village featuring prominently in her reading here.

In this extract, Bent makes one of the earliest descriptions in English of the gigantic statue of ‘Apollo’ at Apollonas, and listen out, too, for references to the village of Komiaki (Koronida), where the Bents first encountered their mercurial dragoman Manthaios Simos, from neighbouring Anafi. As faithful as mercurial, Simos was instrumental in the rescue of the desperately ill Bents, east of Aden, in early 1897.

The Secrets of Stelida, Vanessa’s seventh title in her series is released on 25 February 2026. She writes: ‘I love the mystery genre, which enables me to explore the magic of Greek antiquity, the wonderful landscape and the cuisine of Greece, and the rich complexities of human nature. In The Naxos Mysteries I try to appeal to both the mind and the heart of my reader, engaging them in the passions and tragedies of the characters in a context of discovery and exploration.’

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Irishwoman and celebrity explorer Mabel Bent (a.k.a. Mrs J. Theodore Bent) was, understandably, much in demand for media interviews; her exploits over twenty years fascinated readers internationally.

Although there was a cadre of notable solo women travellers at the turn of the 20th century, adventuring British husband-and-wife teams were rare.

Mabel is often credited as being the first Western woman to explore remote regions in the three areas of the world that interested the inseparable couple  (married 1877) – the Eastern Mediterranean, Africa, and Arabia. For example, Mabel, a role model for Freya Stark in many ways, was trekking through the notorious Wadi Hadramawt (Yemen), three decades before the indomitable latter.

Here is a selection from the many interviews Mabel gave to newspapers and periodicals:

1893: “The Gentlewoman – The Illustrated Weekly Journal for Gentlewomen”, No. 175, Vol. VII, Saturday, November 11, 1893.

1893-4: Two interviews for ‘Lady of the House’ (September 1893 and July 1894).

1895: “Mrs Theodore Bent – The Queen of Explorers”. ‘The Newry Telegraph’ for Thursday, 3rd January 1895.

1895: The Bents: a rare interview from ‘The Album’, 8th July 1895.

1903: Mabel V.A. Bent: ‘In the Days of My Youth: Chapters of Autobiography’, Mainly About People, 10, Issue 240 (17 January 1903), pp. 72-3. 

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First an introduction by us (or skip directly to Professor Al-Jallad’s article).

The Bents’ final journey together (1896/7) sees the couple on the island of Soqotra in the Indian Ocean.

Mabel Bent’s diary for Monday, 21 December 1896 notes:

“We have not for years enjoyed such peace and safety. The people are most pleasant and do not worry us a bit by coming round our tents. We can walk about alone all over the place and yesterday T[heodore] and I went a long distance and found some inscriptions on a smooth rock, also a little hamlet, very clean (Haida), as is Kalenzia.” [our emphasis]

When the widowed Mabel Bent was writing up the event for her Southern Arabia (1900,  p. 351) she says:

“One day we two went some distance in the direction of the mountains, and came on a large upright rock with an inscription upon it, evidently late Himyaritic or Ethiopic, and copied as much of it as was distinguishable. Not far off was the tidy little hamlet of Haida.” [our emphasis]

Theodore Bent copied the inscriptions into his notebook on the spot, and Southern Arabia includes a copy of this (from an uncredited source, not Bent, as he died a few days after returning to London in May 1897).  Mabel’s ‘smooth rock’ has not been found; the text is in Dhofari.

To our knowledge the inscriptions have never been interpreted. Dhofari expert Professor Ahmad Al-Jallad has very kindly prepared the following short article (November 2025) for the Bent Archive. As his commentary includes a variety of symbols and diacritics we offer it as a pdf (click on the image below to access).

‘Theodore Bent’s Dhofari 1 inscriptions, Qalansiyah, Soqotra’ by Prof. Ahmad Al-Jallad (Nov. 2025)

Recommended background reading:

For a very valuable introduction, see J. Jansen van Rensburg (2018), Rock Art of Soqotra, Yemen: A Forgotten Heritage Revisited. Arts 7(4). See also D.B. Doe (1970), Socotra. An Archaeological Reconnaissance in 1967, Coconut Grove, Fla, Field Research Projects; V.V. Naumkin and A.V. Sedov (1993), Monuments of Socotra, Topoi, Orient-Occident 1993(3-2): 569-623.

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Prof. Rebecca Sweetman, Director of the British School at Athens, has chosen Bent’s short, stormy visit to Sikinos for our ‘Reading The Cyclades’ project, marking the 140th (1885-2025) anniversary of Theodore Bent’s classic The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks. If you want to join in, just Messenger us! (photo: BSA)

Click here for other readings!

Sikinos [Bent’s Ch. 8: Sunday, 27 January 1884 – Friday, 1 February 1884]

Bent’s ‘storm-stayed’ chapter on Sikinos is read by Prof. Rebecca Sweetman, who very kindly takes some time off from her busy job as Director of the British School at Athens to make this contribution. We are particularly  grateful to her (coincidentally, she tells us she went to school near Mabel Bent’s birthplace, Beauparc, Co. Meath). Rebecca’s interests have long led her to the islands – having begun by writing on Roman and Late Antique Crete, she is currently working on the Cyclades, with a monograph (The Archaeology of the Cyclades in the Roman and Late Antique Periods – Globalization, Christianization and Resilience) due later in 2025 from Cambridge University Press.

The Bents had a happy relationship with the British School (founded in 1886) and were frequent guests at 52 Souedias Street (in April 1896 Theodore was asked to take charge of a small dig near the Athens Olympieion). Rebecca’s reading ends with the Bents’ ride to Sikinos’ atmospheric Episkopi monument, very recently restored to great acclaim. (By the way, Mabel has her 38th birthday on this remote Cycladic island.)