Author: Gerald Brisch

Mabel’s parasol for a splint: A broken leg in the desert

This extremely rare photograph shows Mabel Bent taking tea with Moses Cotsworth and party in the Palestinian hinterland in 1900/1 (Moses Cotsworth collection, unknown photographer. Photo reproduced with the kind permission of Rare Books and Special Collections, Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia).

“Dear Sir William…Thank you for sending me the flower pictures. I like them very much. Of course I know there is nothing to find in Palestine that is new. I was there the winter before last and camped out by myself 10 weeks in Moab and Haura. I had my own tents and no dragoman. This winter I only got to Jebel Usdum and arrived in Jerusalem with a broken leg, my horse having fallen on me in the wilderness of Judea. My sister Mrs. Bagenal came from Ireland and fetched me from the hospital where I was for 7 weeks. I cannot walk yet but am getting on well and my leg is quite straight and long I am thankful to say…Yours truly Mabel V.A. Bent” (Letter from Mabel to Thiselton-Dyer, 19 April 1901 (Kew Archives: Directors’ Correspondence)).

Theodore’s death in May 1897 – Jubilee year – deprived Mabel of the focus for her life: the need to be somewhere else remained, but now with whom? And why? Typical of her she made plans immediately to visit Egypt on a ‘Cook’s’ tour in the winter of 1898 and chronicled the trip, ending with a return via Athens. The journey provides the concluding episode in this volume, and the heading she gives it – ‘A lonely useless journey’ – reveals her understandable depression. It makes unhappy reading, contrasting so markedly with her opening thrill of being in Cairo on that first visit with Theodore in 1885.

She wrote no more ‘Chronicles’, or at least there are no more in the archives, and on her return to London set about assembling the monograph her husband never lived to complete on his Arabian theories and researches, many of which sprang from their explorations in Mashonaland in 1891. She completed it in eighteen months: driven on by her loss, and inspired by her notebooks, she could be travelling again with Theodore.

The publication by Mabel of ‘Southern Arabia’ (1900) heralded for its surviving author a slow but inevitable decline and a melancholy sequence of years of loneliness and confusion until her death in 1929.

Still wishing to escape the English weather, Mabel opted to spend several winters in Palestine and Jerusalem. There she made local expeditions, and embroiled herself in troublesome expatriate intrigue and Anglican fundamentalism, and met Gertrude Bell, who informed her parents by letter: ‘I … met … Mrs. Theodore Bent the widow of the Ruined Cities of Mashonaland, a thin stiff little Englishwoman [sic], I don’t like her very much.’ And again two weeks later: ‘I met Mrs. Theodore Bent, but having thrown down the Salaam, as we say in my tongue, I rapidly fled, for I do not like her. She is the sort of woman the refrain of whose conversation is: “You see, I have seen things so much more interesting” or “I have seen so many of these, only bigger and older”… I wonder if Theodore Bent liked her.’

On her second solo trip to Palestine in 1900/01, Mabel joined a caravan to visit some sites referenced in the Scriptures, but inexplicably opted to go off on her own, and so doing fell off her mount and broke her leg; hence the above letter to her friend, the Director at Kew. Gertrude Bell in her diary refers to a talk with Mabel in April 1900, and writes that the latter so far “has only been to Mashetta and Bozrah.”

Now, thanks to help from Anna Cook, the researcher on Moses Cotsworth, we have more information on Mabel’s accident, as recounted by the geologist George Frederick Wright, whose caravan it was that she joined. The (lengthy) extract that follows from his autobiography has probably never seen the light of day since its publication in 1916.

“At Jerusalem we were met by my Old Andover friend, Selah Merrill, then United States consul. His experience in the survey of the country east of the Jordan, and his long residence in Jerusalem, were of great service in our subsequent excursions in Palestine. After visiting Jericho and the region around we planned, under his direction, a trip to the unfrequented south end of the Dead Sea. In this we were joined by Mrs. Theodore Bent, whose extensive travels with her husband in Ethiopia, southern Arabia, and Persia, had not only rendered her famous but fitted her in a peculiar manner to be a congenial and helpful traveling companion. She had her own tent and equipment and her own dragoman, and her presence added greatly to the interest of the trip.

“After stopping a day at Hebron, we passed along the heights till we descended to the shore of the Dead Sea at the north end of Jebel Usdum, through the Wadi Zuweirah. Here we found indications that, during the rainy season, tremendous floods of water rushed down from the heights of southern Palestine, through all the wadies. Such had been the force of the temporary torrents here, that, over a delta pushed out by the stream and covering an area of two or three square miles, frequent boulders a foot or more in diameter had been propelled a long distance over a level surface. At the time of our visit, the height of the water in the Dead Sea was such that it everywhere washed the foot of Salt Mountain (Jebel Usdum), making it impossible for us to walk along the shore…

“Near the mouth of Wadi Zuweirah, we observed a nearly complete section of the 600-foot terrace of fine material, displaying the laminae deposited by successive floods during the high level maintained by the water throughout the Glacial epoch. From these it was clear that this flooded condition continued for several thousand years. On the road along the west shore to Ain Jiddy (En-gedi) we observed (as already indicated) ten or twelve abandoned shore lines, consisting of coarse material where the shore was too steep, and the waves had been too strong to let fine sediment settle.

“From all the evidence at command it appears that, at the climax of the Glacial epoch, the water in this valley rose to an elevation of 1,400 feet above the present level of the Dead Sea, gradually declining thereafter to the 600-foot level, where it remained for a long period, at the close of which it again gradually declined to its present level, uncovering the vast sedimentary deposits which meanwhile had accumulated over the valley of the Jordan, north of Jericho.

“Our ride from Ain Jiddy to Bethlehem was notable in more respects than one. The steep climb (of 4,000 feet) up the ascent from the sea to the summit of the plateau was abrupt enough to make one’s head dizzy. But as the zigzag path brought us to higher and higher levels, the backward view towards the mountains of Moab, and towards both the north and the south end of the Dead Sea, was as enchanting as it was impressive. Across the sea, up the valley of the Arnon, we could see the heights above Aroer and Dibon, and back of El Lisan, the heights about Rabbah and Moab, and. those about Kir of Moab, while the extensive deltas coming into the Dead Sea along the whole shore south of us fully confirmed our inferences concerning their effect in encroaching upon its original evaporating area.

“After passing through the wilderness of Jeruel and past Tekoah, as we were approaching Bethlehem, a little before sundown, the men of our party wished to hurry on to get another sight of the scenes amidst which Christ was born. As Mrs. Bent was already familiar with those scenes, she preferred to come along more slowly with the caravan, and told us to go on without any concern for her safety. But soon after arriving at Bethlehem, the sheik who accompanied our party overtook us, and told us that Mrs. Bent had fallen from her horse and suffered severe injury; whereupon we all started back over the rocky pathway, to render the assistance that seemed to be needed.

“On reaching a point where two paths to Bethlehem separated, we were told by a native that he thought our party had proceeded along the other path from that we had taken, and that it would be found to have already reached its destination before us. We therefore returned to Bethlehem. But, soon after, the dragoman came in great haste, saying that Mrs. Bent had indeed fallen from her horse and broken a limb, and that he had left her unprotected in an open field to await assistance. Again, therefore, but accompanied by six strong natives with a large woolen blanket, on which to convey her, we proceeded to the place where the accident occurred. Here we found her where she had been lying for about two hours under the clear starlight. But, instead of complaining, she averred that it was providential that she had been allowed to rest so long before undertaking the painful journey made necessary by the accident; and that all the while she had been occupied with the thought that she was gazing upon the same constellations in the heavens from which the angel of the Lord had appeared to the shepherds to announce the Saviour’s birth.

“The task of giving her relief was not altogether a simple one. The surrounding rocky pastures did not yield any vegetable growth from which a splint could be made to stiffen the broken leg. An inspiration, however, came to my son, who suggested that we could take her parasol for one side and the sound limb for the other, and with the girdle of one of the men bind them together so that the journey could be effected safely. No sooner said than done. The sufferer was laid upon the blanket and slowly carried to Bethlehem by the strong arms of our native escort. From here she was conveyed by carriage to Jerusalem where we arrived between one and two o’clock in the morning, taking her to the English hospital, of which she had been a liberal patron, and where she was acquainted with all the staff; but, alas! this hospital was established exclusively for Jews, and as she was not one they refused to admit her, advising her to go down to the hospital conducted by German sisters. This, however, she flatly refused to do, declaring that rather than do that she would camp on the steps of the English hospital. At this two of the lady members of the staff, who were her special friends, vacated their room and she was provided for.

“Respecting the sequel, we would simply say that her limb was successfully set, and with cheerful confidence she assured us that she would reach London before we did and that we must be sure to call upon her there. She did indeed reach London before we left the city, but it was on the last day of our stay, and, as our tickets had been purchased for the noon train going to Plymouth, we were unable to accept her invitation to dine that evening. Some years afterwards, however, when visiting the city with Mrs. Wright, we found her at home, and had great enjoyment in repeatedly visiting her and studying the rare collections with which she had filled her house upon returning from the various expeditions in which she had accompanied her artistic husband.

“[Some time later pausing] at Rome, Florence, and Genoa, we entered France through Turin by way of the Mount Cenis tunnel, and, after a short stop in Paris, reached London, where I met again the large circle of geologists and archaeologists who had entertained me on my first visit to England… Returning to London, we engaged passage on a steamer from Southampton, just in time, as before remarked, to miss meeting Mrs. Bent, our unfortunate traveling companion in Palestine.” [From: ‘The Story of my life and work’ by Wright, G. Frederick (George Frederick), 1838-1921; Oberlin, Ohio, Bibliotheca Sacra Company, 1916 (including pages page 324 and 328/29. The link to the book is https://archive.org/stream/ ).

Additional thanks also go to Anna Cook and the Moses Cotsworth Facebook Page

PS: On her stretcher journey to eventual hospitalisation in Jerusalem, Mabel would have shut her eyes and been transported back four years to the last time she was rescued, terribly sick with malaria, east of Aden. Also stretchered to Aden, her husband never survives the ordeal, dying in London a few days after arriving home in 1897. Here are the memories she must have relived in the form of some lines from Mabel’s own diary:

‘I felt quite unable to move or stir but on we must go; we had no water and what we had had the day before was like porter. I could not ride, of course, so they said they would carry me. I was dressed up in a skirt and a jacket, my shoes and stockings, a handkerchief tied on my hair, which was put back by one hairpiece and became a hot wet mat, not to be fought with for many a day to come! Of course I could not use my pith helmet lying down. I lay outside, while my bed was strengthened in various ways with tent pegs and the tent poles tied to it and an awning of blanket made. I dreaded very much the roughness of the road and the unevenness of step of my bearers, but off they set at a rapid pace and kept perfect step all the time. They changed from shoulder to shoulder without my feeling it…

‘Sometimes I passed or was passed by the camels, which seemed to be winding about over rocks and hills, but I went over these ways too. The last time we passed I thought it very unlike Theodore never to give me a look but stare straight before him, but then I did not know of his miserable condition. There was a delightful sea wind which came over my head, stronger and stronger, and just seemed to keep me alive. They carried me headfirst. I did not think they would be pleased if I constantly asked how far we were off still, so I only said civil things, but right glad was I, at last, after 15 or 16 miles to find myself in the thick of a rushing, roaring rabble rout of men, women and children, not a thing I really like in general but now it told of the end of my weary journey.’ [From ‘The Travel Chronicles of Mrs. J. Theodore Bent, Volume lll: Southern Arabia and Persia’, page 322. Oxford, Archaeopress, 2010]

Mabel perhaps at Karnak? From Moses Cotsworth’s pamphlet ‘The Fixed Yearal’ (no date).

PPS: However, could this also be a photo of Mabel, perhaps, taken at around the same time at Karnak on the banks of the Nile? Thanks again to Anna Cook, we have a possible image of her from Moses Cotsworth’s pamphlet ‘The Fixed Yearal’ (available online from archive.com), which was probably published around 1914. It shows a woman in travel attire (does the hat match the photo above?), in shade alas, on the right, in front of one of the Karnak pillars. We have no proof that it is her, but Anna Cook, the Cotsworth specialist pins a note to it: “But he [Cotsworth] only travelled to Egypt around November/December 1900 and had his camera stolen so I suspect that the photos were given to him by Professor Wright – his travelling companion. I know that Wright was a widower who travelled with his son and that Cotsworth’s wife was at home in England so really Mabel is the only woman that was around in the right place at the right time and we know that she did travel with Wright and Cotsworth for a time.” (Anna Cook, pers. com., 01/2019)

We do have an earlier Karnak extract from Mabel’s diary: “[Monday] January 31st [1898]. When I reached Luxor I was asked to join a party consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Sebag-Montefiore, Mr. and Mrs. W. Wilson (who were travelling together) and Mrs. and Miss Wibbs [?], one a doctor, and have a special dragoman, Abdul el Kawab, a very good man. We went in the only two carriages to see Karnak by moonlight, a truly awe inspiring sight. [Tuesday] February 1st [1898]. We went again by the light of the sun and came back to luncheon.” (‘The Travel Chronicles of Mrs J Theodore Bent, Vol 2, The African Journeys’, page 270, Archaeopress 2012)

However this is a year before Cotsworth went to Karnak to take his calendar readings; Mabel, recently widowed, was on Nile cruise run by Thomas Cook and did not proceed to Jerusalem that year – she was lonely and cut short her tour, returning to London via Athens (she headed her diary ‘A lonely useless journey). But let’s make a case for her meeting Cotsworth, feeling less lonely, in the winter of 1899/1900 and deciding to join his party for another Nile cruise and then onwards to the Palestinian wilds (where she broke her leg! See above).

PS: An update from Anna Cook (March 2021): ‘Not sure if I’ve mentioned it before but I came across a reference to Theodore in Cotsworth’s The Rational Almanac – page 392. “Mr. R. N. Hall, writing in the Sphere, page 238, for June 13th, 1903, states that he there [Zimbabwe] found a Solar Disc (made from Soapstone) carved with a circle surrounded by 8 smaller circles or knobs, similar to the markings on the ornate object previously found at Zimbabwe and pronounced by Mr Bent to be a ‘sun-image’.” Another mention occurs on page 419 “That late esteemed explorer Mr. Theodore Bent, made the preliminary survey of the more conspicuous remains described in his classical work The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland, pointing with Mauch to the Semitic peoples as the exploiters of those rich Goldfields.”‘

 

Incidentally V: Margaret Kenna, and the Bents on Anáfi in 1884 – ‘Kalamiotissa’

The fifth in Professor Margaret Kenna’s Theodore and Mabel Bent-related series of ‘incidentals’ covering the Cycladic island of Anáfi is all to do with the great monastery site at the western end of the island; that celebrated monument built on the foundations of an ancient temple that perhaps sanctified the locale where Jason and Medea sported – having landed safely in a terrible storm from Crete. But Prof Kenna will fill you in… Margaret is a retired social anthropologist from Swansea University who has been carrying out research on Anáfi, and among Anáfiot migrants in Athens, since 1966. She has written two books and many articles in English about her research: Greek Island Life: Fieldwork on Anafi (2nd edition 2017, Sean Kingston Publishing), and The Social Organisation of Exile: Greek Political Dissidents in the 1930s (2001, Routledge). A Greek translation of the second book was published in 2004 by Alexandreia Press. Many of her articles, in English and in Greek translation, can be found on the websites: academia.edu and ResearchGate. She has also written several booklets which can be found in tourist shops on the island: Anafi: a Brief Guide; Anafi: Island of Exile; The Folklore and Traditions of Anafi, and The Traditional Embroideries of Anafi. She was made an Honorary Citizen of the island in 2006.

This fifth ‘talk’ in Professor Kenna’s thyme-scented series happily coincides with one of Margaret’s regular trips to the island (early June 2018). Go search her out if you are there!

We very much hope you enjoy it and will look out for forthcoming Anáfi ‘talks’ soon on our site; by all means send in your comments to the Bent Archive!

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The Bents visit the Lower Monastery/ Temple of Apollo: earlier, and later, visitors

“On January 10th 1884, the Bents went by boat along the south coast of the island with their host, the ‘demarch’ Chalaris, and their guide Matthaios, to the Lower Monastery ‘of Kalamiotissa, on a promontory’, as Mabel writes. She does not mention the huge peak (1476 feet/ 459 metres) of Mount Kalamos above it, although Theodore does: ‘a gigantic mountain rock’ (1885: 50).

Fig. 1: Mount Kalamos, in the distance, at the eastern end of the south coast of Anafi (M. Kenna).

“A bit of dynamite fishing from rocks along the south coast took place during the boat trip. Mabel writes the initial of the person involved, Theodore tactfully says ‘one of our men’, for then, as now, dynamite fishing is illegal and extremely dangerous. In the 1960s many male villagers had missing fingers or limbs (dynamite was not mentioned to me in the explanations I was given for these injuries), and in the 1980s, two Anafiot men, a father and son, were killed while using it.

“All that Mabel says of their visit at the monastery is this: ‘The Monastery is a very curious place, built on the site and with the stones, and using much of the old building of a temple of Apollo’ (for the diary references, see Bent, M. 2006: 32-34).

“The church of the Lower Monastery and the monks’ cells are indeed built inside the ruins of an ancient temple of Apollo. The myth is that Jason and the Argonauts were caught in a storm and saved by a flash of light thrown by Apollo, revealing the island to them (one derivation of the island’s name is ‘Revelation’, a parallel to another island sacred to Apollo, Delos, a name which also means ‘to reveal’). Anafi was later a place of pilgrimage to the temple of Apollo, and to other temples built on the site, and became rich enough to have its own coinage.

Fig 2: The Lower Monastery church visible over the wall of Apollo’s temple, summer 1966 (M. Kenna).

“The Monastery is called ‘Lower’ because there is another very small one, founded in 1715, on the peak of Mount Kalamos. Until 1887 the ikon of the island’s patron saint, Panayia Kalamiotissa (the Virgin of the Reed), was housed in the Upper Monastery chapel, and it was then brought down to the Lower Monastery. The Lower Monastery had been visited by Ludwig Ross in the 1830s (probably on the same visit as the one on which he sketched the sarcophagus described in another blog entry) and a decade later the archaeologist and epigrapher Hiller von Gaertringen would not only visit the Lower Monastery (because of his interest in the temple) but also photograph it, and the Upper Monastery chapel as well. He published the Anafi inscriptions in Inscriptiones Graecae Vol XII, 3: 54-68, numbers 247-319 (referred to here as I.G.). A photocopy can be found in the museum in the village.

Fig. 3: Hiller von Gaertringen’s photo of the Lower Monastery during his visit, c. 1898.

Fig. 4: A ‘measured drawing’ by Laurits Winstrup, Danish architect, of the layout of the temple and monastery buildings. The wall in the photo above is at the top of this drawing (from Margit Bendtsen ‘Sketches and Measurings: Danish Architects in Greece, 1818:1862’. Copenhagen, 1993: 361).

“At the time of the Bents’ visit, the three monks there were mourning the death of their Abbot the previous day (how Chalaris had not heard of this is not mentioned), so the Bents did not stay long. Theodore does however mention that ‘the monastery now belongs to one at Santorin’ (1885: 50). Later events make it clear that another Abbot was appointed, and, indeed, there was one during my own time on the island (when there no monks at the Lower Monastery) who also acted as village priest. It was only after this Abbot’s death in the 1990s that the Lower and Upper Monasteries became ‘holdings’ of the Monastery of Profitis Ilias on Santorini, and renovations were carried out and other changes made.

Fig. 5: The Lower Monastery in 2016. Part of the ancient wall can just be seen bottom left (M. Kenna).

Fig. 6: Inside the Lower Monastery, showing the wall of one of the temple buildings, summer 1966 (M. Kenna).

Fig. 7: The temple building in the photo above, summer 1988 (M. Kenna).

Fig. 8: The temple building ‘secured’ by the regional archaeological service (21st Ephorate), 2015 (M. Kenna).

Fig. 9: Hiller von Gaertringen’s Greek foreman (Angelos Kosmopoulos from the Peloponnese, wearing a fustanella), in the doorway of the remaining temple building, 1898.

“Theodore refers to Apollo in the god’s manifestation as ‘Aeglites’ (‘radiant’ ‘shining’). However, Apollo on Anafi had an epithet that is unique to that location, which appears in some of inscriptions which Hiller recorded. This epithet is ‘Asgelatas’. Some scholars say this is a variant of ‘aigletes’, radiant, and others relate it to Asclepios/ Aesculapius, god of healing, son of Apollo – so would the epithet mean ‘father of Asclepios’? There are other more controversial interpretations, see ‘Apollo and the Virgin’ in History and Anthropology 2009, available on the websites: academia.edu and ResearchGate. Theodore would surely have known about this epithet as Ludwig Ross had described it (see line 3 of the text in I.G. XII, 248, below).

Fig. 10: One of the inscriptions referring to Apollo as ‘Asgelatas’ (I.G. 248, line 8).

“In the summer of 1966, Richard McNeal visited the island and discovered another such inscription, not recorded by Hiller. It is a dedication of an altar and reads, in translation, ‘To Apollo Asgelatas, on behalf of (my) son Aristogenes’. He asked me to take a photograph of it and to make a ‘squeeze’ (papier-maché impression). The Greek word ‘Asgelatas’ is in the third (last) line.

Fig. 11: The ‘Asgelatas’ altar, summer 1966 (M. Kenna).

“Another of the inscriptions recorded by Hiller refers to celebrating the rituals of the ‘Asgelaia’

Fig. 12: An inscription recorded by Hiller, mentioning the ‘Asgelaia’. I.G. 249, line 22.

“And what they were, we don’t really know – although they could be an occasion at which men and women traded insults, repeating what is said to have taken place on Anafi when Jason and the Argonauts were insulted by Medea and her women. The women derided the men for only having water (instead of wine or oil) to pour on the sacrificial fire offered to Apollo in thanks for their safe arrival on the island (as reported by Apollonios Rhodios in Argonuatica Book IV, line 1730).

“Theodore notes that at the Lower Monastery, ‘In every direction are to be seen inscriptions let into the walls…. It would appear from the inscriptions that this ground was once covered with temples, the principal one being dedicated to Apollo Aeglites, another to Aphrodite, another to Aesculapius, etc.’ (Bent 1885: 50). His work on the inscriptions appears in another ‘blog’ entry (‘Incidentally II’) .

“Of course, and as ever, far the best thing to do is go see for yourselves! The road there is excellent – you can hire a car, scooter, or bike, but the joy is in the walking – there is a coastal path – and in front of you all the way is the tempting and high Kalamiotissa church in the distance. Go on, you can do it!

References

* Bent, Mabel and Brisch, Gerald (ed.) 2006. The Travel Chronicles of Mrs. J. Theodore Bent, Vol I: Greece and the Levantine Littoral. Oxford, Archaeopress.
* Bent, Theodore 1885 (2002). The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks. Oxford, Archaeopress.
* Ross, Ludwig 1840-1852. Reisen auf den griechischen Inseln des ägäischen Meeres (1840-45). Stuttgart, Tübingen, Cotta [https://archive.org/details/reisenundreiser00rossgoog].

Websites
For the Greek Epigraphical Society, see https://greekepigraphicsociety.org.gr/august-2011/#more-440 (accessed 17/03/2018).

Incidentally IV: Margaret Kenna, and the Bents on Anáfi in 1884 – ‘Kastelli’

The fourth in Professor Margaret Kenna’s Theodore and Mabel Bent-related series of ‘incidentals’ covering the Cycladic island of Anáfi, centres around a well-known landmark you can easily find on the way to Kastelli, the hill on which the Hellenistic city ruins can be found. Thus Margaret’s third short ‘talk’ in her thyme-scented series is called: ‘“The sarcophagus” at the Bents’ time, earlier, and more recently’.

Margaret is a retired social anthropologist from Swansea University who has been carrying out research on Anáfi, and among Anáfiot migrants in Athens, since 1966. She has written two books and many articles in English about her research: Greek Island Life: Fieldwork on Anafi (2nd edition 2017, Sean Kingston Publishing), and The Social Organisation of Exile: Greek Political Dissidents in the 1930s (2001, Routledge). A Greek translation of the second book was published in 2004 by Alexandreia Press. Many of her articles, in English and in Greek translation, can be found on the websites: academia.edu and ResearchGate. She has also written several booklets which can be found in tourist shops on the island: Anafi: a Brief Guide; Anafi: Island of Exile; The Folklore and Traditions of Anafi, and The Traditional Embroideries of Anafi. She was made an Honorary Citizen of the island in 2006.

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“The sarcophagus” at the Bents’ time, earlier, and more recently

“On the way to Kastelli, the hill on which the Hellenistic city ruins can be found, the Bents came to ‘a little church’ (the chapel of Panayia tou Dokari), next to which is a marble sarcophagus. As Bent records, there is on one side, ‘a beautifully executed representation of children bringing sacrifices to Bacchus…. On the other side are Bellerophon and Pegasus, and on the two narrow sides are Sphinxes.’ (Bent 1885: 47). Actually, not quite correct, as these photos will show…..

Figure 1: The sarcophagus outside the chapel of Panayia tou Dokari in summer 1967 – Sphinx on short side (east-facing), jolly cherubs on long side (south-facing) (M. Kenna).

Figure 2: The jolly cherubs in late afternoon sunshine (M. Kenna).

Figure 3: Hiller von Gaertringen’s photo of the jolly cherubs, 1898 (IG XII/3).

Figure 4: In summer 1973, Bellerophon and Pegasus on short side (west-facing), jolly cherubs still jolly (M. Kenna).

Figure 5: Bellerophon and Pegasus in late afternoon sunshine (M. Kenna).

Figure 6:…easier to see in Ross’s early C19 drawing of the west-facing side of the sarcophagus (Ross 1840-1852).

Figure 7: Not a sphinx, but winged griffins either side of a pillar, on the north-facing side (M. Kenna).

“Oh, well, the Bents were walking in the January rain, so maybe Theodore can be forgiven for confusing sphinxes and griffins…

“Another sarcophagus was probably in the same location, as fragments of the decorated ‘roof’ can be found built into the wall of the chapel. Bent writes that this other one ‘appears to have been even richer in execution’ (Bent 1885:47).

Figure 8: Fragment of the roof of ‘the other sarcophagus’ (to the right of the headless statue), built into the chapel wall, spring 1967 (M. Kenna).

“There is a sarcophagus (Figure 8) of a similar type in the National Archaeological Museum found in Patras in the Peloponnese, dated around 150 A.D./ C.E., which gives an idea of what the Anafi sarcophagus might have looked like. The scene depicted is a boar hunt.

Figure 9: Item 1186, National Archaeological Museum, Athens (M. Kenna).

“But go see for yourself! Let’s hope all this tempts you to get out from underneath the tamarisks of Roúkouna this summer and stroll Kastelli-wards to snap it. Wear your hat tho!”

References
Bent, Mabel and Brisch, Gerald (ed.) 2006. The Travel Chronicles of Mrs. J. Theodore Bent, Vol I: Greece and the Levantine Littoral. Oxford, Archaeopress.

Bent, Theodore 1885 (2002). The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks. Oxford, Archaeopress.

Hiller von Gaertringen, F. 1898. Inscriptiones: IG XII/3.

Ross, Ludwig 1840-1852. Reisen auf den griechischen Inseln des ägäischen Meeres (1840-45). Stuttgart, Tübingen, Cotta.

 

Incidentally III: Margaret Kenna, and the Bents on Anáfi in 1884 – Some costumes

We are delighted to post the third in Professor Margaret Kenna’s Theodore and Mabel Bent-related series of ‘incidentals’ covering the Cycladic island of Anáfi. Margaret is a retired social anthropologist from Swansea University who has been carrying out research on Anáfi, and among Anáfiot migrants in Athens, since 1966. She has written two books and many articles in English about her research: Greek Island Life: Fieldwork on Anafi (2nd edition 2017, Sean Kingston Publishing), and The Social Organisation of Exile: Greek Political Dissidents in the 1930s (2001, Routledge). A Greek translation of the second book was published in 2004 by Alexandreia Press. Many of her articles, in English and in Greek translation, can be found on the websites: academia.edu and ResearchGate. She has also written several booklets which can be found in tourist shops on the island: Anafi: a Brief Guide; Anafi: Island of Exile; The Folklore and Traditions of Anafi, and The Traditional Embroideries of Anafi. She was made an Honorary Citizen of the island in 2006.

This third short ‘talk’ in Professor Kenna’s thyme-scented series involves an island dress: ‘Mabel’s notes; Theodore’s published text; BUT what did Efthimia’s costume look like?’. During the time the Bents were on Anafi in early January 1884, they were fancily entertained by ‘the demarch’, surnamed Chalaris. On the first evening, they asked his daughter ‘Eutimia’, also the niece of their guide Matthaios Simos, an Anafiot, to show them ‘one of the old Anaphiote costumes’….

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Mabel’s notes; Theodore’s published text; BUT what did Efthimia’s costume look like?

“During the time they were on Anafi in early January 1884, the Bents were entertained by ‘the demarch’, surnamed Chalaris. On the first evening, they asked his daughter ‘Eutimia’, also the niece of their guide Matthaios Simos, an Anafiot, to show them ‘one of the old Anaphiote costumes’. (Nowadays the name is more likely to be spelt Efthimia, as that is how it is pronounced).

“Theodore Bent describes her appearance as ‘magnificent’. In his description of the costume he borrows almost word for word from his wife’s account in her diary: ‘[the costume] consisted of a violet silk brocade skirt, green velvet bodice, gold embroidered stomacher [(a ‘stomacher’ is a V-shaped piece of decorative cloth filling the opening of a bodice], and a short pink satin jacket, edged round the cuffs and down the front with pink fur. The headdress somewhat resembled the pina of Siphnos, but is here called ‘the circle’ (ό κύκλος): it consists of a tall wedge of cotton inside, over which Oriental handkerchiefs are gracefully arranged, so that the ends hang down over the shoulders.’ [Mabel’s diary (kindly supplied by Gerry Brisch; 2006) does not mention the pina, but says ‘Her head was very prettily arranged with 2 of the little embroidered towels we use for antimacassars’.] ‘During the last few years this style of dress has been entirely abandoned; those who wore it were laughed at; and Eutimia that evening came in for a good share of ridicule,…’ (Bent 1885: 45).

“So – what did the ‘old Anaphiote dress’ look like? If we look at old engravings of the costume of the women of Sifnos, we can get some idea of how the pina (rather like a dunce’s cap) looked, and the fur-trimmed jacket:

Fig.1: Detail of old engraving of woman of Sifnos wearing the pina, and a fur-trimmed long coat. M-G-F-A de Choiseul-Gouffier, 1782 Voyage Pittoresque de la Grèce. © Benaki Museum Athens.

“A traditional woman’s costume (in the National Historical Museum in Athens) from the island of Amorgos (roughly 32 miles/ 50 kilometres north-north-east of Anafi) possibly helps with what the skirt and bodice looked like.

Fig. 2: Traditional costume from Amorgos (image from National Historical Museum, Athens).

“If we combine elements from the two images, and re-colour according to Mabel’s and Theodore’s description, something like this might be what Efthimia looked like on that January evening…

Fig. 3: Hypothetical reconstruction of the ‘old Anaphiote costume’…. (M. Kenna).

Fig. 4: …. Or, maybe like this? Drawing © Judith Stroud.

“Anyway, perhaps you would like to visit the island this summer and try and find out for yourselves and let us know!…Of course with your copies of the Bents’ jottings in your hands!”

References

Bent, Mabel and Brisch, Gerald (ed.) 2006. The Travel Chronicles of Mrs. J. Theodore Bent, Vol I: Greece and the Levantine Littoral. Oxford, Archaeopress.

Bent, Theodore 1885 (2002). The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks. Oxford, Archaeopress.

The costume worn by Ekaterina Lorenziades of Ios in the Cyclades to impress the Bents during their stay, now in the National Historical Museum, Athens (photo = Alan King).

See also the blog ‘Folk Costume and Embroidery‘ and Alan King’s post elsewhere on the costume worn by Ekaterina Lorenziades to impress the Bents during their stay on Ios, now in the National Historical Museum, Athens.

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Incidentally II: Margaret Kenna, and the Bents on Anáfi in 1884 – Antiquities and Inscriptions

We are delighted to post the second in Professor Margaret Kenna’s Theodore and Mabel Bent-related series of ‘incidentals’ covering the Cycladic island of Anáfi. Margaret is a retired social anthropologist from Swansea University who has been carrying out research on Anáfi, and among Anáfiot migrants in Athens, since 1966. She has written two books and many articles in English about her research: Greek Island Life: Fieldwork on Anafi (2nd edition 2017, Sean Kingston Publishing), and The Social Organisation of Exile: Greek Political Dissidents in the 1930s (2001, Routledge). A Greek translation of the second book was published in 2004 by Alexandreia Press. Many of her articles, in English and in Greek translation, can be found on the websites: academia.edu and ResearchGate. She has also written several booklets which can be found in tourist shops on the island: Anafi: a Brief Guide; Anafi: Island of Exile; The Folklore and Traditions of Anafi, and The Traditional Embroideries of Anafi. She was made an Honorary Citizen of the island in 2006.

This second ‘talk’ in Professor Kenna’s thyme-scented series involves ‘Antiquities and Inscriptions of Anafi in the Bents’ time, later, and more recently’, presenting, perhaps for the first time, a fascinating introductory synthesis of the antiquities and inscriptions touching on the Bents, through a lens of 100 years. We very much hope you enjoy it and will look out for forthcoming Anáfi ‘talks’ soon on our site; by all means send in your comments to the Bent Archive!

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Antiquities and Inscriptions of Anafi in the Bents’ time, later, and more recently

“During their stay on Anafi in early January 1884, the Bents visited some of the antiquities of the island and noted some of the inscriptions. These were to be recorded later in detail by Hiller von Gaertringen, the famous archaeologist and epigrapher, who visited Anafi in 1898 when he was excavating on Santorini.

“The inscriptions can be found (with details in Latin as to their location and condition) in Inscriptiones Graecae vol XII, fascicle iii (referred to here as I.G.). A photocopy of the section on Anafi was given by me to the island Museum, where headless statues from the Hellenistic city, known locally as Kastelli, are stored.

Figure 1: Headless statue on Kastelli, summer 1967 (photo: M. Kenna).

“Theodore reports visiting the house of an elderly man, surnamed Chalaris (the same surname as the ‘demarch’) who had assisted in the excavations of Ludwig Ross on the island in 1836 (nearly fifty years earlier). The house of this ninety-year old consisted of one room (like most of the village’s barrel-vaulted houses) and had ‘endless archaeological trophies scattered around. With pride he pointed out the various objects he had collected – the torso of a statue let in over his door, an inscription let into his well before the house’ (Bent 1885:45). This must surely be I.G. 280, which is described as being located in ‘the back wall of a cistern in the village house of Sophocles Syrigus’.

Figure 2: Excerpt from I.G.XII, iii: page 64, recording what is probably the inscription at the back of Chalaris’s well (source: I.G.XII, iii: 64).

“Another inscription recorded by Hiller (I.G. 256) is described in Latin as ‘murus gallinario tectus est’ (‘now the wall of a hen-house’).

Figure 3: Excerpt from I.G.XII, iii, page 60. The whereabouts of the henhouse have not been discovered! (source: I.G.XII, iii, 60).

Twentieth-century finds

“Some of the school-teachers posted to the island when a secondary school and high-school were created in the 1980s and 1990s were interested in archaeology and the history of the island. One of them showed us some finds.

Figure 4: Summer 1988: pottery shards found in the village (photo: M. Kenna).

“He showed us the places in the village where he had found the pottery pieces (usually on top of the heaps of soil from the lower levels when cisterns were being dug. The fact that some of the pieces were of geometric pottery – pottery that can be dated to 900-700 BCE – indicates that the village site has been occupied for much longer than various sources state – some of them say it dates from ‘medieval times’). As we looked, one of the villagers ran up and said ‘If you’re interested in that kind of thing, I’ve got something in my shed you might like to see’. And…

Figure 5: Summer 1988 ‘in a shed at the house of…’ (photo: M. Kenna).

“In case it had not been recorded before, we not only photographed it, and tried to copy the inscription, but also improvised a way of indicating its measurements – a Papastratos #1 cigarette packet!

Figure 6: Summer 1988: maybe an unrecorded inscription? – but no…. (photo: M. Kenna).

“It was later identified by an epigrapher who has worked on the island, Angelos Matthaiou, as I.G. XII, iii, 318, page 68 (see the Greek Epigraphical Society website). Angelos and his colleagues have discovered, or re-discovered, many of the inscriptions recorded in I.G. One he found was at the Lower Monastery’s former grape-treading building (patitiri). His discoveries can be found in Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (SEG) and in the journal Horos. Hiller notes that this stele is ‘in today’s village, in the wall below the window of the house of Perulis Drossos’.

Figure 7: I.G XII, 3, number 318.

“Theodore recorded some inscriptions in the village and at the Lower Monastery (knowing that most of them had already been collected by Ross). One of these, which must have been near the Lower Monastery (because he writes ‘before returning to our boat’) was at ‘a ruined house’ and gave a list of ‘seven consuls from different parts of Greece, resident at Anaphi – one from Thessaly, others from Mykonos, Cnidos, Paros, Chios, Lacedaemon, and Siphnos’ (Bent 1885: 50). This must be I.G. 251. Hiller’s entry for it states that it is in the Monastery ‘in cella torcularia’ (in the pressing room, either an olive press or a wine press – in this case, wine-press).

Figure 8: I.G XII, 3: 251, the seven ‘consuls’.

“Theodore also took some ‘squeezes’ (papier-maché impressions) of inscriptions he thought might be unknown; one of them was published in the The Journal of Hellenic Studies (1888), and also referred to by Hiller.

Figure 9: Reference to Bent’s ‘find’ in an article by E. L. Hicks in The Journal of Hellenic Studies 1888 (9): 90-90.

“A decade later, this inscription was published by Hiller, with acknowledgement of Bent’s ‘ectypo’ (squeeze) and Hick’s recording of it in JHS:

Figure 10: I.G. XII, 3: 257, Bent’s work on an inscription is acknowledged (source: I.G. XII, 3: 257).


Figure 11: In context. A Google Map showing the tiny island of Anafi in the Cyclades. Sites shown are Prassa on the north-west, where the Bents landed in January 1884, the Classical and Medieval site of Kastelli, and the Kalamiotissa Monastery to the east of the island.

“I really hope this has inspired you to go search out your own Cycladic inscriptions this summer! See you again soon for the third in my series of Incidentals!”

References:
* Bent, Mabel and Brisch, Gerald (ed.) 2006. The Travel Chronicles of Mrs. J. Theodore Bent, Vol I: Greece and the Levantine Littoral. Oxford, Archaeopress.
* Bent, Theodore 1885 (2002). The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks. Oxford, Archaeopress.
* Ross, Ludwig 1840-1852. Reisen auf den griechischen Inseln des ägäischen Meeres (1840-45). Stuttgart, Tübingen, Cotta [https://archive.org/details/reisenundreiser00rossgoog].

Websites
For the Greek Epigraphical Society, see https://greekepigraphicsociety.org.gr/august-2011/#more-440 (accessed 17/03/2018).

Incidentally I: Margaret Kenna, and the Bents on Anáfi in 1884 – Adventures getting to, and leaving

We are delighted to announce for our site over the coming months a short, Theodore and Mabel Bent-related series of ‘incidentals’ covering the Cycladic island of Anáfi, presented by anthropologist and Anáfi expert Professor Margaret Kenna. Margaret is a retired social anthropologist from Swansea University who has been carrying out research on Anáfi, and among Anáfiot migrants in Athens, since 1966. She has written two books and many articles in English about her research: Greek Island Life: Fieldwork on Anafi (2nd edition 2017, Sean Kingston Publishing), and The Social Organisation of Exile: Greek Political Dissidents in the 1930s (2001, Routledge). A Greek translation of the second book was published in 2004 by Alexandreia Press. Many of her articles, in English and in Greek translation, can be found on the websites: academia.edu and ResearchGate. She has also written several booklets which can be found in tourist shops on the island: Anafi: a Brief Guide; Anafi: Island of Exile; The Folklore and Traditions of Anafi, and The Traditional Embroideries of Anafi. She was made an Honorary Citizen of the island in 2006.

We begin Professor Kenna’s thyme-scented series with ‘Adventures getting to, and leaving, Anafi: 1884 and 1983’, comparing Margaret’s own reminiscences on the island’s (in)accessibility with those of Theodore and Mabel, through a lens of 100 years. We very much hope you enjoy what follows and decide to look out for forthcoming Anáfi ‘talks’ soon on our site; by all means send in your comments to the Bent Archive!

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Adventures getting to, and leaving, Anafi: 1884 and 1983

by Margaret Kenna

“In early January 1884, Theodore and Mabel Bent spent sixteen hours on a caïque travelling from Santorini to Anafi. They landed at around two o’clock in the morning, at a little inlet about two hours away from the village (Theodore describes it as on ‘the north side of the island’, but it is, more accurately, on the north-west coast, north of the fertile western area known as Vayia). This inlet, identified as Prassa, was until a few decades ago used whenever adverse winds and bad weather prevented vessels from getting to the main harbour of Ayios Nikolaos on the south coast of the island.

“Being opposite Santorini, and thus likely to have received stones, rocks and lava from its volcanic eruptions, the inlet has some very striking rock formations:

Pebble from Prassa, commemorating the Bents’ arrival there (art-work by Lito Apostolakou, inklinks.etsy.com)

“While Mabel’s diary (courtesy of Gerry Brisch (Bent 2006: 33)) notes that, once landed, they scrambled over ‘thorns, stones, rocks, and streams’ for an hour before they found a chapel where they could take shelter and spend the rest of the night, Theodore omits all the scrambling and notes his appreciation of ‘those churches, which are dotted everywhere over the islands for benighted wayfarers like ourselves’ (Bent 1885: 44). After this very ethnocentric observation, he comments on the small size of the chapel and its mud floor on which they slept with stones for pillows and their travelling rugs as blankets (also noted by Mabel). No mention at all is made by Theodore of the ‘old man whose son-in-law had died on Anaphe’ who was on the caïque with them, according to Mabel, and had come over ‘to fetch his daughter’. This human interest story is omitted by Theodore, who simply tells us that in the morning they sent their ‘manservant’ (and guide and translator), identified by Gerry Brisch as Matthaios Simos (himself from Anafi), to the village to get mules. While waiting for him to return, they breakfasted on some bacon they had with them, cooked over a brushwood fire. They set off for the village, taking with them mail for the villagers, for which the island had been waiting for two months.

“Almost one hundred years after the Bents arrived at Prassa, when bad weather in April 1983 prevented the steamer from approaching Ayios Nikolaos, five of us, four adults and a four-year old child, had to cross the island on foot to Prassa. Our luggage was on donkeys, for in those days, as in the Bents’ time, there were no roads and no wheeled vehicles (although there was electricity in the village, and a few telephones). Having hurried along rocky paths and across country for several hours, we arrived at Prassa. There, while the steamer waited out at sea, we jumped from a flat rock, which served as a landing stage, into a dinghy, which rowed us out to the steamer, and then collected supplies and a mail bag. Luckily, not an adventure to be repeated as now there is a more-or-less wind-and-weather-withstanding jetty at Ayios Nikolaos harbour.

Prassa in May 2016: the ‘landing stage/embarkation’ platform is the large, sunlit, pale grey, rock sticking out from the cliff in the centre of the picture (photo: Margaret Kenna)

Spring 1983: on Anafi, some of the party, with local friend (in black) just before the cross-country trek to Prassa (photo: Margaret Kenna)

“The Bents had to cut short their stay as the weather was fine and the caïque was waiting, so they were only on the island for two days (9th to 11th January). They collected mail to take to Santorini, and Mabel reports that they were accompanied by the old man, his widowed daughter and her baby (so we do know a little bit more about that human interest story), and Matthaios Simos’s cousin, Margarita.”

The harbour of Ayios Nikolaos in summer 1966. It is likely that only the very short jetty would have existed when the Bents left the island on 11 January 1884 (photo: Margaret Kenna)

An isle in context. Map showing the tiny island of Anafi in the Cyclades. Prassa is on the north-west (map: Google)

See also:

Incidentally II

Incidentally III

Incidentally IV  

Incidentally V

References

Bent, Mabel and Brisch, Gerald (ed.) 2006. The Travel Chronicles of Mrs. J. Theodore Bent, Vol I: Greece and the Levantine Littoral. Oxford, Archaeopress.

Bent, Theodore 1885 (2002). The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks. Oxford, Archaeopress.

‘A traveller without a map……’

New interactive maps just posted on our site!

As Theodore and Mabel were wont to say, ‘A traveller without a map is like, er,….lost’. From Aksum to Zimbabwe, wherever they set out to explore, they always insisted on taking the latest maps with them; or commissioning special ones for their routes; or going so far as to take their own cartographers along with them (e.g. Imam Sharif’s map of the Bents’ expedition to the Wadi Hadramaut in 1894). Mabel later, in a short autobiographical article recalled: ‘In one of my investigations of the library at home I came upon a book that I made up my mind to examine. It had a delightful title “The Atlas of Undiscovered Countries”. It was firmly fixed, and to get at it I had to exert all my strength and become very hot, tugging out the great folios that were on each side, and then to my disgust I found my prize was only a false wooden book to support the upper shelf. Years after I exclaimed, ‘Now I have really an atlas of undiscovered countries of my own’, when I eagerly unpacked a map in eight sheets (that my husband had had made at Stanford’s, of Southern Arabia, when we were first thinking of exploring that part of the world) and found two or three of the sheets blank save for latitude and longitude marks. I am glad to say that the blank is not so large now…’

We are glad, too, to say that our website now has a series of interactive Google maps detailing the 20 years of the Bents’ expeditions. The most recent one added is labelled ‘The Bents’ Greatest Hits’ and shows the sites where the Bents made their most significant researches or discoveries in the 1880s and ’90s – from Aksum to Zimbabwe; the map also features a separate layer picking out significant locations for the Bents in England and Ireland. The pins are augmented with texts, photos, etc., and are very well worth a few minutes of your busy day – to transport you back to the late 19th century and days of solar topees, slow steamers, gin and quinine, leather portmanteaux, assorted adventures, and nights under unrecognisable stars…

Imam Sharif’s map of the Bents’ expedition to the Wadi Hadramaut, 1894. From Theodore Bent’s 1894 paper for the Royal Geographical Society. Image © The Bent Archive
Imam Sharif’s map of the Bents’ expedition to the Wadi Hadramaut, 1894. From Theodore Bent’s 1894 paper for the Royal Geographical Society. Image © The Bent Archive

Many happy returns Mabel on your birthday today (28 January)!

‘It was splendid being up there’ – Mabel climbing the Great Pyramid of Giza on her birthday – Wednesday 28 January 1885.

Some Pyramid scalers in 1885 (the year of Mabel’s ascent), by J. Pascal Sébah. Obviously clambering all over them was the thing to do back then; it is not recommended today.

In January 1885, before leaving for a tour of the Dodecanese, Theodore and Mabel made a tourist trip to Egypt, taking in, of course, the Pyramids: the Great Pyramid (also known as the ‘Pyramid of Cheops’ and constructed around 2500 BCE), and the smaller Khafre and Menkaure Pyramids. The Sphinx squats in the complex’s eastern quarter.

The visit to the Pyramids coincided with Mabel’s 38th birthday (she was born at Beauparc, Co. Meath, on 28 January 1847) and she went to tea as guests of Frederick and Jessie Head (the wealthy daughter of Australian magnate John D. Mclean) at their stylish home, Mena House, below the Pyramids. (Their house still forms part of the Mena Hotel, the Heads buying their home in 1883, a year after their wedding in Wells, Somerset). Mabel does not record whether Frederick was much out of breath after their visit, or feeling unwell, but in any event within a few months he is dead, and poor Jessie (far from actually poor) sold up to another wealthy couple, the Locke-Kings, who turned the house into a fancy hotel – and it remains one to this day.

Mabel, of course, logs the event in her ‘Chronicle’ for the day. We may assume from her reference to ‘steps’ ‘3 or 4 feet high’ that it was the Great Pyramid she felt moved to attempt. Possibly just because it was there:

[Thursday] Jan. 29th [1885]. I had such a great many birthday treats yesterday, one in particular that I shall never forget unless extreme old age robs me of my memory… A little after 5 we set off for the Pyramids with the gun lent by the porter and enough cartridges for a whole battle. We saw the Pyramids against the sunset sky, a very plain one – all the colours of the rainbow fading and blending one into the other and very few tiny specks of cloud. The simplicity of it suited the Pyramids so well.

… After dinner we went out in the bright moonlight and Theodore… went to visit the Sphinx but I preferred to go up the Pyramid, as I had not done it on Monday… I scrambled up all alone. At first it was very hard and I had to crawl, putting one knee up first, as the steps are 3 or 4 feet high, regardless of bruised knees or shins and I felt quite convinced I must have very little stockings left but I am in a position to send a testimonial to the stocking maker. I did not feel a bit frightened or giddy or obliged to keep my face to the Pyramid but looked up and down. My companions were quite out of sight and it felt odd to be alone with the Pyramid and the moon. I shouted up several times ‘Are you near the top?’ ‘Oh! Not nearly’ came down. Then ‘Am I half way up?’ ‘No Mem’ came up. So I gave up asking. It seemed so long and I wondered how it could be possible to get down… I did not get at all breathless.

I wondered if ‘Fair Rhodope who as the story tells’ sat on the top of the Pyramid,  delighting all beholders, was a poor creature whose clothes had got torn off in the ascent and who could not get down. I thought of the dangers and difficulties in ‘Murray’ and ‘Baedeker’ and determined to read about them and tremble tomorrow, and I banished scornfully a very passing thought of the silk elbows of the only smart frock I have with me, and joyfully and proudly reached the summit, a strangely dressed figure – Hat, silk and velvet brocade body, white lace fichu over it and a blue cloth petticoat with a wide scarlet band, which I quite vainly tried to conceal by tying a black lace scarf round it; the skirt had been discarded before starting.

It was splendid being up there and I think it very very unlikely that any other person has been up by moonlight on his birthday before. I wished for a fire escape! Mr. Head and I came down together, sitting and slipping, sometimes having to put two hands together and jump and were glad indeed to reach the bottom safely … We had some tea and got home after a most delightful evening at 1 o’clock.

The Head’s residence below the Pyramids, where the Bents had tea, Mina House. Today a boutique hotel on a larger scale; the original house constituting the modern hotel’s dining areas.

For those needing a reference to Mabel’s ‘Fair Rhodope’, we must turn to the lines of Thomas Moore:

‘Fair Rhodope, as story tells,/ The bright unearthly nymph, who dwells/ ‘Mid sunless gold and jewels hid,/ The Lady of the Pyramid!’ (1827, ‘The Epicurean’).

Mabel’s lines are from the Egyptian entries in her ‘Travel Chronicles’, Vol. 2, pages 11-13 (Archaeopress, Oxford, 2012).

The photographs include one of some Pyramid scalers in 1885 (the year of Mabel’s ascent), by J. Pascal Sébah. Obviously clambering all over them was the thing to do back then; it is not recommended today.

The other photo is of the Head’s residence below the Pyramids, where the Bents had tea, Mina House. Today a boutique hotel on a larger scale; the original house constituting the modern hotel’s dining areas.

A review of Bent birthdays based on Mabel Bent’s Chronicles, 1884-1897

The accompanying interactive map below plots these birthdays: Mabel in green, Theodore in blue. (NB: London [13 Great Cumberland Place] stands in for unknown locations in Great Britain; the couple could have been away visiting family and friends in Ireland or England, including at their property ‘Sutton Hall’, outside of Macclesfield.)


There were 28 Bent birthday events (2 x 14) between 1884–1897 (the years covered by Mabel Bent’s diaries). Of these 28, only 5 (18%) were not spent in the field, and only 7 times (25%) does Mabel refer to a birthday in her notebooks directly. In the above Table, column 1 gives the year and ages of the Bents on their birthdays; columns 2 and 3 give their birthday locations. Events in red are when Mabel refers directly to their birthdays. ‘London’ is standing in for unknown locations in Great Britain. If not at their main residence (13 Great Cumberland Place), the couple could have been visiting family and friends in Ireland and England, including at their property Sutton Hall, outside of Macclesfield.

Papers say: Lost Oil Portrait Of Theodore Bent Discovered! Now Read On….

We are delighted to update this post with a wonderful addition to the Bent Archive gallery – at last, the lost oil! And by way of tribute to a real artist –  ‘Miss J. D. S. Aldworth’ !

 

For those interested in the background to this painting, read on!

(Or, more accurately really, the knowledge that there is a portrait of Theodore that has been lost, has been discovered.)

Here at the Bent Archive, snippets of biographical information about Theodore and Mabel turn up all the time. On one of our regular trawls through the Irish newspapers, the following few lines from the Dublin Daily Express (1 August 1898) came to light after lying on the sea floor for some 120 years:

‘Miss J. D. S. Aldworth, an Irish artist who is rising to distinction in London, has had the honour of submitting to her Highness the Duchess of York the pastel painting which she presented to be sold for the benefit of the Princess Mary Village Houses. Miss Aldworth studied first in London, and subsequently in Paris, under M. R. L. Fleury… and has exhibited in the Royal Academy, the Institute of Painters, the Royal Hibernian Academy, and other shows. Miss Aldworth. who belongs to a well-known Cork family, is a successful portrait painter in oils and pastels, and adds another name to the long roll of talented Irish artists. Amongst the best portraits in oils we may mention that of the late Theodore Bent, F.R.G.S., F.S.A.’

Now, to us, this is of more interest than the Antikythera Mechanism (retrieved from the deep but a few sea miles from where Theodore dug on Antiparos in 1883/4)! For we now know there is a missing portrait of Theodore to be tracked down. Did Theodore own it? Was it left to Mabel’s sisters and nieces on her death in 1929? All this is to be found out and published.

Two sidetracks can be pointed to.

What of the artist? Jane Dorothea Sophia Aldworth was born on 15 April 1861, the daughter of Colonel Robert Aldworth and Olivia Catherine Morton – a distinguished family from Co. Cork. After training in France, Jane returned to London and Dublin (inter alia) to paint and sculpt. A society artist, Jane, of course, found time for Cheltenham, and the Cheltenham Chronicle for Tuesday 21 September 1880 notes the Aldworths arriving at 38 Lansdown Crescent: ‘Col. and Mrs. Aldworth, Miss J. D. S Aldworth, Mr. St. Letter B. Aldworth. Mr. J. J O. Aldworth…’ By 1894/5 Jane had a London base at 37 Seymour Street, and featured her work in a catalogue of the 12th exhibition of the Institute of Painters in Oil Colours (it seems her picture of Theodore was not exhibited). In 1898 we have the article reference in the Dublin Daily Express quoted above. In 1905/6 she exhibited a piece (and offered it for sale at £5.5.0) called ‘The Spirit of the Rose’ at the Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Exhibition.

The Cheltenham Looker-On of Saturday 23 February 1907 has a dismissive view of one of Jane’s pictures on show at the Cheltenham and County Fine Art Society:

‘Amongst other painters who have contributed works of more or less merit, which want of space prevents us from criticising at length, are the following :- A. M. Bryant, A. K. Meadows, Sydney Scott, Rose Willis, W. W. Stephens, Col. Penrose Thaekwell, T. Mesham [and] J. D. S. Aldworth.’

Perhaps, in the end, Jane is better remembered for her charity work than her art. The next we hear of her is a letter in the Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser (Saturday 28 October 1911): [To the Editor.] Sir, In response to my letter last winter asking for gifts of books, toys, dolls, etc., to send to the Church of England Waifs and Strays and Dr. Barnardo’s Homes, many of your readers kindly interested their young friends, and were able to send several hundred toys, thus bringing joy to many young hearts. I hope this winter we may enlist further sympathy and make a still larger collection. Toy cupboards might now be turned out in anticipation of Christmas, last year’s Christmas cards made into scrap books, dolls re-dressed, etc., and so many less fortunate little brothers and sisters would be enabled to have share in our Christmas cheer. I shall be grateful for all contributions of toys, new and old. They should sent in not later than Saturday, December 3rd. — Yours, etc., J. D. S. Aldworth. Claremont, Dorking.

Jane Aldworth died on 8 June 1913 at age 52, unmarried.

But what of this missing oil painting of Theodore Bent? Suffice it to say, it would be wonderful to locate and exhibit it – pride of place in the RGS Gallery, London. There are few likenesses of Theodore, Mabel’s efforts as expedition photographer were, frankly, undistinguished, and very few have survived because of technical difficulties. Sadly, a large number of her glass slides used for Theodore’s lectures were thrown away in the early 1950s, as being too damaged or faded to make further use of – today they could perhaps have been restored.

Jane’s missing portrait has a date referenced above of 1898, with Theodore having died in May the year before. So when did Theodore pose for Jane? Mabel used a fine studio photograph of her husband for the frontispiece of her account of the couple’s Arabian explorations, Southern Arabia, published in 1900. In all likelihood, this photograph of Theodore, and Jane’s portrait, were executed in the mid 1890s, when Theodore was in his early 40s.

As for how he may have looked in Jane Aldworth’s portrait, let’s stretch our imaginations and look at details from the photograph referred to above and a detail of a fine painting of Theodore’s uncle, Sir John Bent (1793–1857), erstwhile brewer and Mayor of Liverpool. The oil painting of Sir John was done in 1855 by Philip Westcott (1815–1878) and hangs today in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Looking for a resemblance (and bearing in mind an age difference of some 20 years), can we see family similarities in the eyes and brows? If Jane had painted Theodore at 65, not 45, might he have looked like the portrait of Sir John? But the missing picture, when we find it, will look like the studio photograph published by Mabel in her book of 1900.

So, if you see an unattributed oil painting at auction that has the eyes (though younger) of this sitter – buy it! It is this lost painting of Theodore Bent! Or, of course, if you own it now, or have any further information on Jane Aldworth – do let us know. Jane’s likeness of Theodore may be no oil painting, but we would love to see it!